


not just the carcass, but the spark

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-War, Sexual Content, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 03:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10376709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: Time stopped mattering to him long ago, except in units of distance: how many days' walk they had to go, how many days until their next orders. The air smells nice; it's even warm enough even that one of the windows has been propped open on the cabin. Bucky remembers cracking open the window to the fire escape in those early days of April and smelling the Brooklyn morning with something like hope.





	1. BEGINNINGS

**Author's Note:**

> The situation is a bit more horrible than usual; Bucky's wartime experience is not watered down, nor are his prewar burdens. 
> 
> Title is from a Gregory Orr poem, "To Be Alive."

  


  


14.

There's something fascinating Bucky about the human form.

Which is to say, specifically this one, which is to say, he expects they all do. He expects humanity is a fascinating bunch. Here's Steve Rogers, buck naked and scowling, and Bucky can't quit looking at him, smiling as such. He'd like to quit. There's something a little off about this, but he just can't find reason in him under all this fascination.

"Throw _me_ into the river," Steve mutters, back turned, spine protruding. He's trying to dry out his ear and Bucky's just so damn _interested_ in the whole thing, though he'd never admit to it under penalty of death.

"Safer there," Bucky remarks. He ducks the pine cone Steve kicks at him.

"Throw _them_ in the river next time. Always treat me like I deserved it."

"You _did_ deserve it."

"Aw, suck an egg."

" _You_ suck an egg." He looks at Steve's rosy, knobby knees and thinks that if that growth spurt ever hit him he'd be about the knockiest boy in town. "Could use the nutrients."

"To fight off you, you mean! The hell am I gonna tell Ma?"

"Tell her the truth. That you got in a fight with a couple of blowhards and I tossed you in the river to save you from yourself."

Steve half-turns to glare at him and his mouth is pink and pale, and Bucky wonders what it'd be like to pull at that lip until it separated from the other. He wonders what it'd be like to cover the whole works with his own, just take him right in and make him--

A jolt in his gut. Bucky's face falls the moment before he catches it.

But Steve sees it. He frowns, fury forgotten. "You alright?"

"Sure," Bucky says. He tries to stop whatever the hell is happening to _his_ human body now, new and persistent, warm and horrible. "Regretting myself a bit now, I guess. Best get you home, Rogers, it's getting cold."

" _Getting_ cold!" Steve gripes, wringing out his shirt best he can. Bucky catches himself smiling again -- worries at his lip as he watches Steve, as he looks away from watching him, as he looks back again.

And he's at that age, or so his mother says, when he eats out half the house and finds his bed in sudden need of increased launderings. He's at that age, or so his father says, where any damn patch of flesh strikes him as interesting, no matter who it's on. So it's the human form, it's hips and knees and bones in general that's getting him; it's gotta be. Anything'll get the blood pumping seen in the right light. 

So Bucky can wait it out. He can wait until some girl makes him feel all that, the way Pa told him to. He can wait a little while, set all this aside; settle for fascination in the meantime.

  


  


  


16.

Steve never got that growth spurt but his voice sure tends low and Bucky thinks it's funny, because it is -- seeing someone that small sound so serious. It's so funny he laughs, sometimes, sometimes like today, and today Steve throws a half-hearted punch that Bucky blocks easy.

"Hey!" he says. "What's that about?"

"Quit it," says Steve, then goes back to walking normal.

"Nah," Bucky says, and lights a cigarette.

Steve looks at him funny when he takes an inhale. Steve's got some crazy conspiracy theory like these things are bad for him, just because it makes his asthma bad. There must be something about Steve's griping that lights up the contrary part of Bucky's mind, though, because he finds he smokes twice as much when Steve's around, just to see him looking.

"Smoke that away from me," Steve says, and shoves him. He's getting stronger, at least; Bucky stumbles a few feet away.

"Okay," Bucky says, "Okay, Jesus." Steve scowls at him then and opens his mouth, and Bucky inhales hard just to distract him from the rant that's coming. Something about taking the Lord's name, he expects, and it works well enough; Steve's mouth stays open, he forgets what he was saying because he's so damn mad. It works every time like a goddamned charm. 

Bucky swaggers cheerfully. Steve pushes him again. "You deserve me," he says suddenly, and it strikes Bucky as so funny that he coughs the smoke out of his lungs on accident.

"Yeah?" Bucky croaks. "How d'you figure?"

"You're as bad as me but only _to_ me and that makes you think you're better than me."

"I don't think I'm better than you."

"Sure you do. You stand around and you wait for me to get into a fight, and then you pull me out of it, and then you pretend to be moral just so you can feel good about yourself. Like you think you're a sentinel, or a guard or something. I'm just a project to you."

Something hardens in Bucky's gut, unexpected. "I don't think that."

"Then why are you always hanging around me, huh? Why are you always around?" He shoves him again, just to be an ass. "You just like to feel like a big man, huh?"

Bucky's just stunned. "Steve."

"Why are you pretending to be friends with me?"

And the problem of it is that Bucky thinks the world of Steve. He thinks the absolute world of him. He thinks that only someone as crazy as he is would have to be the most interesting person in the world to anybody, only no one believes it but Bucky. Bucky never understood that. He never understood why no one sees it in Steve but him.

Bucky halts in his tracks. The cigarette hangs loose from his lips but doesn't fall, like Bucky's been practicing. He saw a man do this in a speakeasy his father took him to once: speaking without once letting the cigarette fall. It was so weird and goddamned _fascinating_ , or whatever; he'd found he couldn't look away.

"I am friends with you," Bucky tells him.

"Then why the hell," Steve begins; but then he stops and just breathes at him, from a little further down the street.

"I," Bucky says. He scratches his neck. "I just hate it when you get hurt, Rogers. Seems to me it shouldn't happen."

"Well--"

"Yeah, yeah, they have it coming. But _you_ don't."

Steve looks away again; shrugs at a nearby bird. "Why not?"

"Because," Bucky says. He starts walking slowly, experimentally, toward him.

"Because why?" says Steve.

"Because," Bucky says. He runs a thumb along Steve's lip; he doesn't know why. Touches that divot in his chin, too. "Good face. Shame to see it hit."

Then Steve looks up at him and he's got such a beautiful mouth, this mouth that gets him into so much trouble. Bucky's a little lost in it, the way he tries to do with the dames he's taken to taking out these days. He figures it's the fact of the pictures going on in the background that keeps him distracted; that keeps him thinking of other things. 

He moves his hand away and paws Steve's face to the side. "Also, you're delicate," Bucky says, and sets off down the street.

"I am not delicate!" Steve says. He hurries to catch up with him.

"No?" Bucky says. He hands him the pack of cigarettes. "You want one?"

"You know that I can't."

"Well you can't do the rest of what you try, either, Rogers. I'm just preventing you from landing in hospital twice again what you already do. Because I _like_ you, jackass, not because I think I'm better than you." He hooks an elbow at the back of his neck and then lets go again, ruffling his hair. "Get it right."

And Steve walks a while in silence, keeps his hands shoved in his pockets, but then he kicks a rock and says, "Okay," and then that's the end of it. He doesn't argue anymore. Steve's never been one to let an argument go, exactly, but that one he does, and Bucky's relieved about that, though he couldn't say why. He supposes it's the kind of thing can tear a man up. He doesn't want himself to be be misunderstood.

  


  


  


17.

"You're trouble," Sarah Rogers says to him. "Don't think that I don't see it."

She's looking Bucky right in the eye, hands pressed into fists, knuckles hard against the table, so there shouldn't be any mistaking the situation for any other. Still, Bucky frowns and looks around the room to see if Steve's just come in, because he can't say this is making so much sense to him otherwise. 

"Me?" Bucky says, pointing to himself.

"You," Sarah says, unwavering. "It's hard for a boy your age out there, I know that much, so I'm not too inclined to blame you too hard. But in the last few years Steve's been getting into more trouble where you're concerned, and as his health declines I want to make especially sure that you and me understand one another."

Sarah Rogers is a wonderful woman, tough in ways Bucky's own resilient mother isn't, despite that she tends as thin as Steve. Most people describe her as wisplike, say a good gust of wind would knock her down, but as a nurse for nineteen years she's as strong as anyone he's ever met. Her hair is kept in a bun every time he sees her and yet spreads freely around her head, wiry and wild, prematurely grey or maybe grey on time. To look her in the face, Bucky always thinks he has a good idea of what Steve is gonna look like in thirty years: thin features, lightly freckled, a little worn by age but stern and delightful in equal turns.

"Yes ma'am," Bucky says, more than a little stunned.

"Steve isn't like you." Sarah points to the bedroom where Steve's been waylaid by the most recent bout of flu that's turned into pneumonia, that's left his breath so perilously thin that Sarah's barely left his side in days. "He can't handle the things you throw at him. Tossing him in rivers. Landing him in fights." 

Bucky opens his mouth as she speaks, trying to clarify the issue, but he can't get a word in edgewise. "You know as well as I do that his lungs are getting worse by the day," she goes on, "and you showing up smoking all the time isn't helping either. I smelled smoke in his room last week and you know, I blame you in no small part for the severity of his lungs today. I think you're old enough for me to say that now."

Bucky gapes at her. He shakes his head slowly, trying to explain that he doesn't mean to harm Steve at all -- trying to explain that he means to keep him _safe_. That the river was stupid and the smoking is careless but the fights aren't him; he doesn't know why Steve always picks them but he'd give the world to keep him out of them.

But Sarah ploughs on. "And for all the world is difficult on you, James -- and I do know it is -- it is threefold as hard on Steve. Now I don't fault you trying to get through it the way you do, but you must be gentle with him, because his heart's too tender for it, and I don't mean physically. You're becoming a seasoned fighter, but Steve will never be. Each time you throw your fists you'll have to understand that you're risking the life of a boy whose time on this earth is already limited. Lord knows I appreciate the friendship you've shown him and it's not beyond me that you've shown up on our doorstep every day he's been sick since grade school. But that means you should know as well as anyone that he isn't well, James, even when he looks it. And things cannot continue the way that they have, because whether in a fight you start or by some other means, one of these days he may truly die. Now believe me when I--"

But she cuts off there, standing tall and blinking; and Bucky doesn't blame her, because he'd hardly expected the tears to fall on his cheeks either. He looks away, furious with himself; his eyes find the kitchen window. A bird preens on the sill. 

He opens his mouth a few times, just to find he can't say a word. "Oh," Sarah says, and sits down across from him. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I've said too much." 

"No," he croaks. He palms angrily at the teartracks on his face and wishes to God he had a cigarette to smoke. "But you should know I've never meant harm to Steve a day in his life. The smoking I take responsibility for, but I _really_ think you oughtta know that Steve gets himself into far more trouble than I could possibly manage, ma'am, that's a fact. _He_ picks his fights. I ain't never thrown a punch that wasn't thrown at Steve first. He challenges people, see -- he challenges these clowns on their beliefs, and they surely ought to be challenged but he doesn't have that voice in his head that tells him to quit." He shakes his head. "You wanna know why I took up boxing, ma'am? I did it for Steve, Mrs. Rogers, that's the God's honest truth. Since about the day I met him I've been doing the best I can for him. I think I'd do just about anything short of throwing myself into traffic just so he wouldn't ever have to take another hit. But I can't be there all the time. He just gets in so _goddamn_ over his head sometimes. And I guess maybe he rubs off on me in the way he thinks he's invincible now and again, so maybe that's how I forget about his stupid lungs. I'm real sorry for that, and I'm sure glad you brought it up to me, because--"

Then his traitorous throat closes on him, so he just shakes his head and watches the birds.

Sarah watches him a while before sweeping up to pour him a glass of water. "You know he's been telling me you've had nothing to do with it," she says, turning back. "For years, with the fights. I suppose it's taken hearing it from you to know it's true. I should have listened."

Bucky smiles, thin and resigned. "No amount of talking to him about it prevents him from throwing himself around like his body's replaceable merchandise, ma'am. He knows what he's doing. He's too damn smart for his own good you ask me. I can step in and take what's meant for him to a certain extent, and God knows I try, but no one's success rate is gonna be a hundred percent when he's as determined as he is to change the society by the world's stupidest means."

Sarah nods at him. "I suppose it never much occurred to me you might feel the same for him as he does for you," she says, and just like that Bucky's heart falls. It shocks him, inexplicable; he can't think why it happened. He sees at once she didn't mean anything by it, though mean _what_ he still can't fathom. "I didn't mean to blame you," she goes on, saving him from himself. "I guess it's hard for a mother to accept, when your son spends so much time fighting for his life, that he could possibly want to spend more of it fighting for the last word."

"Saint Steve," Bucky croaks, and offers a cracking, shambling smile. "That's him."

"Lord above," Sarah mutters. "Spare me that image."

"Sorry." Bucky smiles a little, genuine this time, helpless to it. "But you know, Mrs. Rogers, I… I'm not sure I'd want him to change all that much. Not if all that fight is the same kind of thing that leads him to pull through shit like this." He thumbs backward toward Steve's bedroom. "You know, even then, I'm not sure I'd change a damn thing about him. He's just entirely who he is, ma'am. Try as I might, I'm not sure I can fault him. Not really."

He can hear his own honesty, and see Sarah's too when she stares at him a little hard. He gets suddenly to his feet, just to try to break the tension. "Anyway," he says, scratching at his neck. "Message received, I swear it. He won't see me smoke another cigarette within ten feet of him. I can't do a thing about the rest of him, but at least I can do that much."

Sarah smiles. She looks so tired. "He's lucky to have you," she tells him, quiet.

"Well, maybe," says Bucky, because that's how he feels: like he's never quite sure if he ever helps Steve more than he hurts him. Like in throwing the next punch, he never knows whether he's digging Steve into an even deeper hole than he first dug himself.

But he does know that he comes back the next day, and the day after that; he knows he comes back every damn day it takes until Steve's on his feet again. He knows he can't help it. He knows there's no place he'd rather be. So whatever he's doing, it seems like he's gonna keep doing it. At least until Steve tells him to do otherwise.

  


  


  


18.

Steve gets stupider as time goes on. Bucky has to really throw his weight around to get Steve out of one fight in particular -- against three guys who are throwing words around that try to make Steve into _less_. And the trouble is that Steve gets mad enough to let them succeed. He gets halfway to unconscious being beaten to shit before Bucky steps in and pulls him out of it, and it's a good thing he does or Steve might really have -- only Steve must get confused, because when Bucky pulls him up after the others have bolted he blinks at Bucky like he's coming awake, then starts to fight _him_ , pulling away, launching forward, until Bucky pins him to a wall to get him to stop.

"The hell is wrong with you, huh?" Bucky says in his face, and it's low and it's furious and Steve's chest won't quit heaving. "What's wrong with you that you think you can take me half-broken like this? Jesus Christ, Steve, look at you. Your insides are practically out, what are you--" Feeling breaks in him, breaks the sentence in half, breaks his face into some expression he doesn't mean. "Quit _fighting_ , damn you! You'll make it worse."

"Get off me!"

"Get -- are you kidding? You'll deck me. Stay _still,_ " Bucky says, and he grabs Steve's wrists and plants them high. He leans his hip against him and Steve's eyes flicker closed, and it doesn't fit, until he looks up at Bucky with parting lips.

"Oh," Bucky says. He doesn't mean to. It's just that his throat is drying out.

"Get off me," Steve says again. It's lower this time, and this time Bucky does. He backs right away, gets most of the way across the alleyway; nearly trips over an errant can. Then he just stands there, desperate to get this pulsing out of him. 

"They're not worth it, Steve," Bucky grinds out. They're alone but he looks from side to side anyway, sure something's happened that's not supposed to. "They're not worth -- you."

"You didn't hear what they were saying," Steve says, and runs the back of his hand along his mouth. His lip's been split in two different places and it's insane, Bucky's gone insane; he wants to run his tongue along them and lick them clean.

"I want," Bucky says, against his will, and then shakes himself clear of it. "I wish you wouldn't listen to them. It doesn't mean anything."

"How can you say that? They don't say it about you."

"You don't _listen_ to people like that. They don't -- know you. They don't get you."

"And you do?"

"Yeah," Bucky says, shrugging wildly. "I do my goddamned best, anyhow. You see anyone else out here making a better effort? All I ever want is for you -- to be _happy_ , Steve, but you never are. Nothing's ever enough for you. I try to build you a world that you can live in, that wants you the way it should, and you just need another fight to land you miserable again. It's your nicotine, getting hit. Jesus Christ, Steve, I hate _seeing_ you like this. I just wish you'd be happy for once in your life."

Steve's face is wrecked and he's holding his arm kind of funny, but now he looks at Bucky like none of it's there. "Oh," he says. It's kind of flat.

Bucky shrugs at him. It doesn't matter. "Let's go, huh? Let's get you cleaned up, you're a mess."

"But what if it was true?" Steve bursts out, courage suddenly finding him. "What if what they were saying was true?"

Bucky stands at a crossroads. On the one hand, he... knows. He just saw it on Steve's face. And moment by moment, it falls into place -- what it is Steve is seeking. What he wants, when he starts all this. It's punishing, to get punched back, but it's... well. Bucky gets it. He doesn't wish it on him, but at least he understands.

On the other hand...

"Are you sure?" Bucky says. "You look at a dame and there ain't nothing you can convince yourself to be interested in? No tiny detail? You sure about that?"

Steve blinks at him. It's hard to tell under the swelling and the blood, but Bucky thinks he might be frowning. 

"It's not supposed to be that hard," Steve says, slowly.

Bucky shrugs. "It ain't supposed to be easy."

"Isn't… it?"

"That's what the poems say."

Steve frowns harder. Cocks his head a little. "Alright," he says, a little strangely. Steve moves away from the wall, then, and says it again. "Alright. I'm going home."

"I'm coming with you."

"You don't have to do that."

"Course I do. You can't even walk."

And that's true, in the end, so Steve shrugs and sets off; and Bucky walks alongside for a while, hands shoved in his pockets, before taking pity on him and throwing an arm around his neck. "Do me a favor," Bucky says, lips on his brow, and if he stays a little tense Steve still leans against him. "Stay out of fights for a couple days, huh? Do it for me."

"Alright," Steve agrees. And by some divine mandate, he does.

  


  


  


20.

In the end it spools out of him before he can push it back. Steve lands himself in a fight again. There's a cut he can't see just above his eye. His mirror broke. He can't afford another one. Sarah's in the sanitorium. So Bucky gets the cloth and wipes it clean. Then he gets the peroxide and applies that too, and Steve hisses because it burns, and Bucky tells him it serves him right. But he fixes him. He fixes him up and puts some medical tape over the cut because he's out of gauze and he can't afford more, but it has to stay clean somehow, nasty wound like that. And then he's sitting beside him on the sofa and his thumb falls into that little dip under Steve's mouth.

Bucky is _obsessed_ with it. He thinks about it while trying to sleep. The thing of it is that he's gone insane. He's been led into madness by Steve Rogers' chin dimple. It's the worst thing that's ever happened to him. It's been worse still since he's been forced to admit to it, to the fact that it's not just anyone who does it for him but the fact that it's _Steve_ \-- Steve's mouth, Steve's jaw, this chin that gets him this hot, and oh, God, he's losing his mind right here and right now. 

Steve's long since stopped feigning interest in the dames Bucky's tried to set him up with and paid attention only to Bucky instead, and now Bucky's had to face up to that -- face up to the fact that he doesn't even mind. All their double dates were starting to feel like single dates with two girlfriends there, and Bucky let it happen, started looking for sisters or at the very least friends, so they at least got along while Steve and Bucky did whatever it is they do. See the sights themselves. Lean into one another like it's the other keeping him upright. And it's -- stupid. It's all very stupid and Steve's stupid and Bucky's _definitely_ stupid and it's born of desperation, because Steve's low on work and Sarah might die, and Steve won't stop getting in these stupid fights. There's a cut on his head. Bucky's thumb is at his chin. And so he tilts Steve's mouth open and kisses him there.

It's slow to hit. Their knees knock together. The air grows thick; their noses are flush. Bucky's eyes are closed and he's not sure what he's doing, his thumb is still at Steve's chin as though to hold him in place. Only Steve's not going anywhere. Steve seems not to be breathing and Bucky's not either and for a second he thinks of running away, but then -- _then_ \-- Steve's kissing him back and it's -- _oh_ \-- he burns _hot_ , he _hasn't_ misread it, Steve's mouth opens _beautifully,_ his hand tangling at the back of Bucky's head.

Then it hits him. All at once.

It starts in his chest and tears him in half, a straight shot down; he moans in Steve's mouth. He thinks he might be trying to speak but his mouth is still on Steve's and oh, _God;_ he's dizzy with it, he's swearing, he's swearing directly into Steve's mouth. Bucky pulls back, then, it's all too much, and he sets his head down against Steve's and _breathes._ He has to. He's drowning in this. He doesn't know what comes next. But Steve is -- an idiot, Steve will drive them to ruin, because he crawls into Bucky's lap, hitches one knee over him, and settles right down. 

He's almost tall over Bucky, like this, with fingers tugging in his hair. Bucky's hands set at his back, holding him there, holding him up, same way he always does. He doesn't know what else to do. He's burning so hot he thinks he might die. 

"You're going to kill me," Bucky says, because his chest is so tight. He only _wants;_ wants to tilt his hips up. He's never let himself think about this. He doesn't know what to do. 

"Bucky," Steve says in that voice of his, and it's a balm, anesthetic; one hand rests high in Bucky's hair. The other one rests against the back of the sofa and he's leaning over him, and oh, _God_. Bucky's going to die. He's sure of it now. He is going to die right exactly here. For someone so certain he doesn't seem to mind. His fingers sculpt over Steve's shoulderblades and he's obsessed with them, with everything; with the tilting plane of his mouth. 

Steve kisses him then, and it's deeper, clumsier, but Bucky doesn't mind. Bucky's kissed dames a thousand times but it's never done this to him, it's never made him feel like this. He holds Steve close and Steve doesn't move, and it's -- there's nothing that -- it's _impossible,_ all of this, yet nothing compares.

But… they can't do this; they haven't thought this through. 

Bucky finds it in him to pull away. "Jesus," he says, turning to breathe.

"You took," Steve says, fingers playing at the back of his neck, "for _ever_."

"What? Wait -- what? _What?_ "

"I waited -- oh my God. I thought you'd never figure it out. I'd lost _hope_."

"Steve."

"Fuck." His fingers press against his skin. "Say that again."

He means his name. Bucky's eyes flicker shut. He wants _something_ , oh, God. "Steve," he says only, but he said it without thinking; Steve makes some noise, gone and terrible, then he's kissing him again. 

Bucky grabs him by the arms. "No -- I'm trying to say -- _wait_ , damn you."

"Wait more?"

"Yes."

Steve deflates. "Why?"

"You're--" He shakes his head. "Fuck. Okay. You're -- you've got this idea. In your head."

"Yeah," Steve says, nodding fervently. "It's pretty amazing. We should go for it."

Bucky laughs. He can't help himself. "Jesus. You don't stop."

"Don't intend to, no."

"W… okay. Wow. I--"

While Bucky sputters, Steve pulls up his shirt from out of his waistband and starts running his hands underneath its hem. "Bucky," Steve breathes, fingers dancing across his rib bones. " _Bucky,_ you're so--" Then he's kissing him again, and Bucky doesn't stop him, it's just so _good, God;_ Steve's hands are -- he's dizzy with it, muttering against Steve's mouth. 

"You're going to kill me with this," Bucky murmurs.

"I'm not," says Steve.

"You are," says Bucky. "I think I'm dying, I really do."

"I really wish you'd quit saying that."

"That's how I feel. I don't know how else to say it."

"This is how it's _supposed_ to feel."

"Oh, _God._ Is that right?"

"It's a good thing."

"What the hell d'you know about it?"

Steve's hands seem to be grabbing at anything they can under his shirt, but Bucky's just hold at Steve's back, at his neck. "Oh God," Bucky mutters, like he can't stem the words. "Oh, God."

"Hush," Steve says, and his thumbs have found his nipples and it's a straight shot to his dick. He hadn't even known that was _possible_. 

His hips shift as he tries to sit up but that's no better with Steve on top of him. "Fuck," Bucky mutters. "What are you -- what kind of--"

"Stop that right now," Steve tells him. "You're perfect, Bucky, you're a perfect human specimen, except for all your damn _complaining_. Look at you."

"Jesus _Christ,_ Steve. Shut _up._ "

"No. You're stuck with me now. I'm already in there." Steve knocks on his chest, right over his heart. "You know I am, Buck, and you better admit it. I won't get off you until you do."

"You got some kinda nerve--"

"You kissed me. _You_ kissed _me_."

"Yeah! And I don't know what I was thinking!"

"I do." He palms at Bucky's dick over his pants and Bucky -- can't think, oh, God; his mind goes blank. All he can see is Steve's face, mildly bruised, full with want, tongue sticking behind his teeth. He licks at his lips and Bucky watches it all -- watches him and feels compelled to know what it looks like, when he looks like this. When he wants. When he wants _Bucky_. Only now that he knows it's overwhelming.

"Steve," he manages to say. He barely knows the sound of his own voice. "You're insane. You know that? You're completely out of your head."

"No." So certain. "I'm not. And neither are you." 

Bucky strains to disagree, but he can't stop watching him. He wants to learn that mouth, he wants -- but Steve kisses him before he can think straight, and he wants that, too. Steve's hand is clumsy at his dick and Bucky's _lost_ to it, _God,_ he tries at once to lean into it and also away and his back contorts in some bizarre slouch. It's just all too much. Steve's here, Steve's on top of him, it's _Steve_ who's doing this, and that's just right and it's also terrible. Steve Rogers has finally broken him.

"Oh," Bucky says. He turns his face to breathe. Steve presses his lips to his cheek, to his temple, threatens to reach inside his pants. 

Bucky bats his hand away. "Hell, now, don't be stupid."

"Why not?"

"We can't afford it."

Steve laughs, and maybe it was a strange thing to say, but God help them both because it's true. Bucky wants this so bad, and they really can't afford it. They've both lost their minds and there's no good choice.

Steve must feel his seriousness, because he seems torn halfway between doing things to him and watching him back. "Bucky," Steve says. "Buck, you gotta know what this is."

"Doom," he says.

"No."

"Impending doom."

"No. The other thing."

Before Bucky knows he's done it he realizes he's reached up to trace Steve's lips with his fingers. "Ruin?"

Steve smiles; gathers Bucky's hand so kindly from his face. "You're _alive_ , Bucky. For once in your short and stupid life you're finally living something _real_. Commit, would you? The rest of the world doesn't compare."

The look on Steve's face is as bright as any spark he's ever seen, even in a fight. Bucky raises his head, sudden, with realization. "Is _this_ \-- what you've been chasing all this time?"

Steve nods, earnest -- and the beautiful mess in Bucky's gut turns to hard stone.

The heat in his cheeks feels recriminatory, now, stinging, and this feeling in him is twice as punishing as it was when it began. He finds Steve's hips and moves him away, and in the end it was just that easy. That's all he ever had to do. 

"This was wrongheaded," he says. He gets up and paces around. "This was stupid and I'm sorry I started it."

Steve looks at him, mouth parting with realizing shock. "Buck." 

"It's a thrill to you. But it's not worth—" 

"Sit down and—" 

"Get out," Bucky says softly. "Get out and go home. Figure out how you're gonna look after your Ma, Steve. That's all that matters now." 

The stillness that follows is devastating. Steve blinks up at him, face is void of anything, like shock's left him vacant -- until a solitary tear drifts careless toward his chin. 

"Bucky," he says. His voice is ground to powder, and oh, Jesus, he's done it now. 

Bucky's heart pounds at him, punishing; it feels pulled to breaking. "Get out of here, Rogers."

"But I--" 

He doesn't say the rest of it. He doesn't have to. Bucky feels that pull of want again -- stubborn, insistent. 

"Quit it," he whispers.

"I have a long time. You know I have."

"I don't know that."

"You knew I did. You knew I was. You wouldn't have kissed me otherwise."

Bucky shakes his head. "You don't want me."

"I do. More than--" 

"You haven't _tried_ anything else!"

"I have. And so have you." Steve sits tall and finds fight in him, and Bucky feels relief hum in him for all it's familiar. "Has it worked?"

"Haven't met the right person, that's all."

Steve scoffs. "You've never gone steady with anyone. I'm the only constant you got."

"Then I haven't tried hard enough."

"You couldn't try harder! You gonna quit your job and date full-time? I can't _believe_ \--" And there's a break in his voice again and Bucky goes crashing down, _God_ , he's an idiot; he can't believe he's let it get this far. "I _had_ you, Bucky. I saw you, plain as day, right here in front of me. Don't pull back on me now."

If there's one thing Bucky can't take it's to see Steve cry. He turns to him properly; watches him palm angrily at the tears on his face. "You just want the rush," Bucky tells him. "I can see that much. And I won't be that for you, Steve, I'm sorry. You want trouble, you're gonna have to find it your own damn self. I'll bail you out of it, same as I always do, but I won't--"

"I don't want any trouble. I just want you." Every stick of his voice is an icepick in Bucky's throat. "Don't abandon me."

"I'm not abandoning you." Bucky sees the thrum of Steve's heart in every sway of his tiny form and wants to protect him from it, only this time the aggressor is himself. "Giving into this would be abandoning you."

Something seems to register, then. "How... d'you figure?"

"I told you before. I can't afford it."

"You can't afford not to." He's found certainty again, only Bucky likes it in him less this time. "You didn't see your face. It's not just that you want me, Bucky, you've never felt anything like that before. Touching me -- c'mon, I mean--"

" _You_ come on, Rogers. It's not--"

"You can't afford to just shove it away like it doesn't exist."

"You don't know _what_ I--"

"I know enough. This is new and incredible and you _want_ it. Admit that much, Bucky. You shove this away, a part of you dies. And I won't let it. I won't let that happen to you." He raises his chin, firm with resolve. "Tell me you love me. You've got to. I won't leave until you do."

Bucky's eyes won't move from where Steve sits. They can't, nor can he. He's left clutching at the guts that threaten to tumble out of him because Steve fucking Rogers doesn't know when to quit. 

He's sick with it. He feels sick with the fact that nothing makes sense. It doesn't make sense, standing here, wanting him. It doesn't make sense how he wants to lift him up against the wall and kiss him stupid. It doesn't make sense wanting Steve to fuck against him like he couldn't stop if he tried, wanting him to come like that, flushed and sorry, sticky against his chest. It doesn't make any goddamned sense and yet -- just thinking about it -- it's fucking him up. It doesn't make sense, but he knows it'd be the end of him if he went through with it. It'd be the end of them both, giving in to this; they'd be ruined in more than one sense. They'd never come out of it, they'd be found out, they'd be rejected, blackballed, fucking extorted; living this would be the death of them, sooner than they deserve. That much, Bucky can make sense of.

"If I did," Bucky says, very quietly, and Steve's eyebrows fly up like he's surprised to hear it. "If you were right. It wouldn't change that there's no life in it."

Steve stares, mouth softly agape, and Bucky can't parse what he's feeling. He thinks Steve may feel as he does: like it's not supposed to go like this. Like they deserve more than he can give. "But -- there's _only_ life in that," says Steve. It's horrifically earnest; it's a bludgeon to his chest. "It's the only life I _know_."

"I can't enable this."

"Bucky."

"I really can't be this for you. You want to run your life into the ground, fine, but I won't be responsible for it."

"That's insane." Steve's breathless again. Bucky watches the rise and fall of his chest. "Now you're being a fool on purpose. You're _already_ that for me, Bucky, I'm already ruined for you. I'm already fucked up. People can see it plain as day. How many times have you saved me from them, huh? How many times have you stood up and saved my life, made me feel like I'm all right?"

"Is _that_ why you fight? So I'll stand up for you?"

" _No._ I'm trying to say you're the reason I…" 

But it seems he's finally found a limit to what he'll say aloud. Bucky frowns harder but Steve only flushes, splotches appearing right down to his chest. 

It's this, of all things, that brings longing emotion to rise in Bucky again. "I'm the reason you _what_ ," he croaks.

Steve looks up at him, staring plain. "You're the reason I fight back."

It's defiant; it's certain. Bucky stares at him, heart trying to beat clear out of his chest. "That's -- insane," he manages, breath short.

"You think so? You tell me something, huh? What makes _you_ fight? What lands you in those situations, taking punches meant for me? You could just as easy leave me to the dogs, but you don't. Tell me _why_ , Bucky, and don't you dare lie. Don't tell me you don't feel the same."

And Steve Rogers is a man of his convictions. He believes some things so strongly that it starts to alter the world around him, sometimes. Bucky thinks this must be one of those times. He thinks: this is what makes him so extraordinary. This is what lands Bucky in those fights, every time -- what compels Bucky to him like a magnet to steel. 

Steve Rogers and his fucking _convictions_.

"Don't pretend it isn't real," Steve is saying. Bucky's silence must have run too long. "I'm real. I'm right here." He rolls to his knees on the couch and shuffles forward until he's perched on the edge of it, kneeling tall. His throws his arms out on either side and looks up at Bucky, unabashed, unafraid, wholly accepting, and Bucky's as terrified for him as he's ever been. "Don't shove me away now. We deserve this. We deserve to feel this, to be _alive_."

"Steve."

"You're exhilarated by me, I can _see_ it. Tell me you don't want this. Tell me you don't want me." Then Steve grabs Bucky's hand and slaps it across his throat, and he's a lunatic, that much is clear; but if Steve is then Bucky is too. 

Steve swallows underneath his palm and desire blushes full in Bucky as if it'd never left. "Holy fuck," Bucky whispers. He knows he should pull back. His arm twitches with it, but he's lost to the cadence of the pulse in Steve's neck. He finds himself drawing a line, from jaw down to collarbone, with his thumb, automatic; and when Steve's vision clouds a little dark, Bucky knows then he's not going anywhere.

"Quit accusing me of what you're just as guilty of," Steve rasps. "You _want_ me. You're transfixed by me. The way you look at my mouth--"

"Shut up," Bucky grits out. He pulls his hand away, wipes the sweat off on his leg. "Shut up, Steve."

"And that's not where it ends. I'd swear you're in love with me, Bucky, really I would. I see it on you. I feel it. Don't deny me, Bucky, don't deny yourself this. You _can't._ That's what'll ruin you."

It sparks in him, the truth of it. Bucky's breath is coming hard enough to cleave his chest in two. God, he wants to; he's never wanted anything more. But he can only stare at him, wholly torn between sense and sensation.

They breathe at each other, a while, caught in the unmoving amber of desire.

"Kiss me," Steve murmurs.

"No," Bucky says.

"Stop wanting to then." He licks his lips. Bucky forgets to think. 

"Stop that," Bucky says.

"I won't. I want you." Steve fists his hands in his untucked shirt. Bucky closes his hand over it, but he's breathing too hard, he's dizzy, he can't think; he never makes it through to removing Steve's hand. "I won't hide from that anymore. You make me feel things that I--"

"Stop. Enough."

"I know you feel them too, Bucky." He smiles, pure mischievous energy, and Bucky feels drawn in. "Come on, kiss me. You know you want to."

"Are you _goading me_ into--"

"Kiss me one more time, Bucky, and if you want to stop then, fine. Fine. I'll let you. But I want you to know who you are, and I want you to know for sure what you want. I want you to know what you're giving up for sure, because--"

But Bucky bends before Steve can finish -- takes his face in both hands, and kisses him good as before. He's stooped this time, back curving hard, and his body _reacts_ , oh Jesus, oh God. He stops thinking again when Steve's mouth goes abruptly soft; he tastes at Steve's lip with his tongue, feels him shudder in want, and all Bucky wants is this and this and God help him, God help them both -- he thinks he'd stay forever given half a chance.

"Alright," Bucky says, when he manages to detach. "Alright, _fuck_ you, first of all, and second of all you've got to listen to me." He rubs at his mouth and stands tall again and Steve is grinning at him, for some reason. Bucky hates it; wants to kiss it off him, wants to make him shake until he can't speak. "I mean it, Rogers, take this seriously. We have to set ground rules for -- get _off_ me, damn you."

Steve had been trying to work his hands back under his shirt. He licks his lips when Bucky throws him off, says, "I love when you swear," and his neck is curved long: inexpertly seductive, inexplicably effective. "You know that?"

"Shut _up_ , damn you, and let me think." He finds it in him to let go; takes a step back. "You -- we can't -- keep this up. Alright? It's unsustainable. We've got to work to get out of it."

Steve blinks at him. "Why?"

"It's not good for us."

"You don't _know_ what it is yet."

"Neither do you. Sit _down,_ will you?" Bucky pushes Steve onto his heels with a hand on his shoulder and Steve goes willingly; looks up at him, lips parting with bewilderment.

"What's wrong with it?"

"We're careening off a cliff, here."

"And?" Steve really seems to not give a damn, and Bucky wishes he could see it that way. He wishes to God he could hand himself over to this. He envies Steve so much of it: his freedom, his carelessness. The whole damn problem is that Bucky cares too much. 

"We have to build _lives_ , Steve. You think we can live like this and ignore what's out there? There's a world we gotta fit into."

"I've never fit into it." Quiet, too sincere. "I don't care about the world, and it doesn't care about me."

"That's -- such a lie, Rogers, you care to _bits_ about this place. And you should -- that's the way it should be -- and regardless of whether you do or not I still have to. I have to pay _rent_ , Rogers. Don't you see? I have a family to support, I got you. There's no giving ourselves to this like the world doesn't matter." He gestures outside. "They find us out, you think I can still get work? You think my sisters eat, that happens?"

Steve seems to understand, then. Sorrow ripples over his brow. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_. Maybe I want you, but that's not enough. Alright?" Bucky looks down at him, jaw clenching, and reaches to trace a thumb around those frowning lips: meant as a comfort, as he's letting him down. "Whatever we do here -- what we've done, whatever we're about to -- I'm saying it ain't the beginning to anything permanent. It can't be. You gotta understand that, Steve, tell me you do. Every time we give into this, it's a risk. It is a massive risk, one with other people at stake, and not one I can take on the regular. Regardless of what I want."

Steve blinks at him a minute. He tries to move his lips to where Bucky's thumb stubbornly traces, but Bucky withdraws when he does, gaze sharpening. Steve exhales, mouth quirking with thrill. "It's not like we'd flaunt it," he says, shuffling forward on his knees a little. "Who would know?"

"We already flaunt it." And that's true; Bucky's known that for a long time. "Dames out on double dates with us figure it out quick. I gotta put in effort to rectify those impressions, did you know that? Sometimes I take those girls out twice just to let 'em know I'm interested."

Steve hadn't known it. He's hurt by it, he can see that much. "But… why?"

"Girls talk, Rogers, and besides that people listen. Their daddies run the factories you and me work in, you get it? Those girls' brothers -- who d'you think you're fighting out there? It's dangerous in more than one way, word gets out."

"So we stop going on dates with girls," Steve says, like it's so obvious.

"That's even worse."

" _How?_ "

"Never mind how, just listen to me! I'm trying to tell you we can't go on like this. You and me try to do this thing and it's more than a thrill. Maybe we die, this time, maybe my family doesn't eat. If the fights don't kill us, society'll get efficient about it, you understand?"

Steve gives him a generous look. "Bucky."

"Pay attention! Goddamn you! You can't take on the whole fucking world!" Bucky's really angry, now, hands clenching into fists, and Steve's face irons out; Bucky feels bad at once. "Damn it, Steve, I'm trying to keep you _safe_. Don't you see? You brush that off like you don't care if you die tomorrow but if you provoke this situation, I swear to God I will leave you. I will walk out that door and not come back."

"Okay. Okay."

"I want the world for you, you terrible bastard, don't you get it? There's so much I want for you. I'd give it to you myself if I could, but the very least you could do is not throw it away for the fucking rush of a cock in your mouth."

Steve's face goes slack and his eyes fall to his groin and Bucky regrets ever bringing it up, because now he has to touch him again. His hand quakes as it sets against his jaw, as his thumb traces at Steve's lips again, and Steve looks so beautiful, here. He looks so beautiful when his eyes flicker closed that way. "Look, it's not just for me," Bucky mutters, voice made low by feeling. "It's not just about work. We both need a _life_ , Rogers. We need something outside of each other, outside of _this_ , or we'll drown in it."

"But I don't care for any of that," Steve says. He seems to be trying to keep his lips still as possible, just to let Bucky learn them. "I've never cared for anything you want."

"That is perfectly fucking obvious to me. But we gotta try at it, you and me, both of us."

"But if you keep -- are you saying you'll--"

And he's so hopeful. He's so fucking full of hope. Those convictions again, wearing him down. "I have responsibilities I can't shirk," Bucky says, and he knows he sounds tired. "I won't shirk them, for both our sakes. We can't give ourselves to this." But even as he says it, he's overcome; pushes the tip of his thumb into Steve's mouth, because he can. Steve's lips seal around it, half kiss, half something else, and Bucky feels himself go dizzy again. "Please promise me, Rogers," he croaks. "Promise me you'll try. It's the only way you're getting a damn thing outta me. Otherwise I gotta walk away. You know I do." He pulls his thumb out and paints at Steve's lips with the wet of it.

"You wouldn't leave me," he mutters, still looking up at him. "Not really."

"No." It's fast, brutally honest; Bucky shuts his eyes against it. "But this -- whatever this is, whatever I started -- it doesn't exist. Not unless you promise me you'll look for a life, if we -- give in."

He almost says, _give up,_ but he doesn't. Steve blinks at him, thinking, and Bucky thrums with it. He feels the beat of his heart so precisely in his throat, in his dick, in every limb as he watches him.

"This is how I get you in bed?" Steve says at last, and he looks so fucking deceptively _innocent_ , this reckless libertine.

"Just for tonight," is what he says, but by the look on Steve's face it seems they both know better.

"Because of how bad you want me."

"If that's what you want to hear, Rogers. God help me. Yes."

"Then I promise," he says in a rush.

"Say it all," Bucky says, shaking his head. "Promise me you'll look for a life. Promise me you'll never quit drawing, that you'll start looking for work in art and quit trying to cobble together part-time factory jobs. Tell me you'll find more friends, take a dame out now and again. Don't get holed up in that apartment on your own, Steve, thinking of what we can't have. _Please_ tell me you won't."

Steve nods, holding his eye. "I promise, Bucky. I'll look for a life. If it means I have you."

"See, you're not hearing me--"

"I promise, Bucky. I promise." Steve's high on his knees again and pulling at Bucky's arm, pulling him close, running his hands under his shirt again. Bucky lets him do it, feels himself shiver with it. "I'll do anything for you, Bucky. You gotta believe me." Steve's fingers rest at his flank and Bucky licks his lips; shuts his eyes. Feels himself start to fall. 

"You are so goddamned dangerous," he mutters, and then he lurches forward and takes Steve's back beneath his hands. Steve's running hot for once in his life and soon Bucky's overbalanced him, guides him down against the sofa, and Steve's breath breaks beautiful as he falls on his back. He takes Bucky's weight on top of him so easy, so natural, gripping in his hair for goddamn life, and the sounds out of his throat are things of Bucky's dreams: Steve Rogers, breath hitching, rutting his hips against Bucky's skin.

  



	2. MIDDLES

  


21.

Things spiral out of Bucky's control -- the way they always seem to, where Steve is concerned. 

Sarah dies before her time. Bucky tells Steve to move in. It's both a fight and a bad idea. Bucky does it anyway. He _feels_ the mistake he's making every time he offers; feels himself make another one, after it's done, every time he drags Steve off the sofa and into his bed. 

It's just that he's -- down. Steve is so down and Bucky can't stand it. He's alone in this world, this impossible soul, and Bucky's helpless but to help the same way he always has. He might feel the mistakes burning in him, but he can't stop himself from making them. 

He just wants it all so goddamned _bad_. He wants Steve around; wants his incapacitating warmth, wants him clutching to him with obstinate hands, throwing his head back and asking for _more_. Bucky knows he's throwing them into peril every time he does it, but he still does it, and Steve does it too, even after he starts to look at Bucky with fallow resentment when he comes home from a date. 

They both know they're drowning, self-destructing, just as Bucky'd thought. It's just happening in different ways than expected.

The problem is -- Bucky thinks he might just live for the days he takes Steve to bed. He thinks of him during long days at work; thinks of the line of his neck, of the way his breath hitches, the way his fingers tense in Bucky's hair, when he's wondering where their next meal is gonna come from. 

Steve gets into fewer fights when Bucky takes him to bed. Bucky can't tell if it's an intentional bid, if he's being manipulated, or if it's cause and effect. If the energy of this spitfire, he thinks -- building to bursting -- needs somewhere to land; if it's that Bucky can fuck it out of him or he can expel it his own damn self by way of flailing fists... well. He knows which one he prefers.

So maybe he lets himself get manipulated, if that's what this is. Just a little, from time to time.

Bucky still dates a lot, when he's got the cash. Steve sleeps on the sofa, then, and doesn't talk to him for weeks at a time. Steve's also sick a lot more, these days, and whether or not he's responsible Bucky blames himself. He's never forgotten what Sarah told him years ago: that he's living on borrowed time. When Steve can't shake that thin rattle in his lungs for months at a time -- when he starts to cough after daring to do something so strenuous as opening a stiff window -- Bucky gets afraid it might never truly go away. He makes Steve a lot of broth, when there's protein leftover. He tries to make some out of vegetables to terrible results. He tries to tell himself it isn't out of guilt, but it's so hard to tell. He knows what he feels but not what it means; knows what he wants but not how to get it. 

The months pass on. Steve's lungs get better. Bucky takes him to bed again. There's still no good answer.

It's not beyond him that it's hard for Steve to build himself a life when he's so sick all the time. But if he doesn't do it, he'll only get angrier at the way Bucky fights to build one of his own. And Bucky does -- fight, fight this, wanting Steve so much. He gives into that basal desire again and again, frantic with the need to feel something real. When he kisses Steve slow and sweet, lets that impossible feeling build in him, in some ways it's the only life he really knows -- these moments that string loosely together like a constellation through time. This rumbling catastrophe, this fight in pint form, makes Bucky drunk just by living -- just by being near him, just by being Steve. The rest of world drops away when Steve is in his arms. The fact of it grips at him, wrecks him, leaves him run-down and ravenous. 

The more they do it, the more Bucky knows they can't live like this for long. The more that they do it, the more he can't live without it. Skinny Steve Rogers: the world, exhaustive. God help him -- he can't turn away, he knows that now.

Sometimes the truth of it sinks its claws into them both.

"Tell me," Steve says one night, when Bucky's buried his face in Steve's chest.

His eyes crack open. He was half gone to sleep. "No," he mumbles. "Not now, Rogers, please. Spare me."

"Tell me the truth," Steve says. "Tell me this isn't what you want. All the time. _All the time_ , Bucky. Tell me you don't want this twice again right now."

Bucky holds at his back and presses his face deeper into Steve's skin. Steve always holds him in just this way -- like he knows that he needs it, like Steve knows he's safe harbour. That's the kind of thing Steve's courageous enough to be: safe harbour, and knowing it. Steve is just -- exactly who he is, all of the time. Bucky's as fucking gone on it as he's ever been.

"You know you hold me hostage with this," Bucky mutters.

" _You_ hold _me_ hostage," Steve says, and there's real anger in it. Bucky's brow creases, though neither of them move. "I let you do what you want and I ask for one thing in return."

"Steve. I'm so tired, please."

"And that's the truth. So tell me, Bucky. Tell me right now."

Bucky sighs. His fingers grow tight where they're holding in the small of his back. "You already know."

"I want to hear you say it."

"That I love you?" he says, a little angry himself. "That I'm hopeless without you? Is that what you want?"

It seems that it is. A silence spans between them, sliding between serenity to tension like ice that's slow to melt. "Yes," Steve says eventually, and the tension's gone; Bucky feels free to press his mouth, hot and open, at the centre of his sternum.

"Great," he says. "Can we let it go now?"

"You're awful," Steve says, and he means that, too. 

Bucky doesn't mean to be, but he supposes he is. "I love you anyhow."

"Shut up." It seems now that he's heard it he doesn't want it twice.

"I do, you know. More than the whole world. You know I do."

Steve's chest hitches -- not hard, but worse, soft. "No," he says, and swallows. "Not more than the world."

Bucky hides from it; burrows his head harder against Steve's chest. It's Steve who's being awful, now, just by telling the truth. "You promised me a life, Rogers, please. Please let me have one."

"Fine," Steve says, terse, and then he's gone; he's out of the bed, and Bucky watches the movement of his bony limbs as he steps into his shorts, stunned and horrified. "There you go, Bucky. You're free to it, free from me. Congratulations."

"Hey, come on. Come back."

"You can't have it both ways," Steve says, and then he's rounded the corner and gone.

Bucky languishes in terrible guilt, as he's sure was intended, for the better part of an hour. He clutches the blankets to his chest and waits for his heart rate to quell, waits to stop feeling like he's lost the world along with Steve, but he never gets there. Having had him here and then watching him leave, Bucky feels like his heart's been scooped out him. He thinks he's starting to get what it looks like to Steve when Bucky sets off on one of his dates.

He gets up after a while, unable to sleep. He finds Steve on the sofa, curled up tight under a blanket. He looks cold. He wishes he didn't look so goddamn cold. Bucky hadn't realized until then that he'd been terrified Steve had really left, or was preparing to leave. He's not sure where Steve would go, but he's sure there's… somewhere.

Steve's not sleeping either, as it turns out; that much is clear from how still he's trying to be in spite of the fact of his freezing. Bucky drops to his haunches and puts his chin on top of his fists; stares at Steve, and after a while he turns only his head and stares at him right back. 

He's so small and so goddamned stubborn. 

Neither of them has much to say. Silence stretches on, yawning and horrible.

"Come back to bed," Bucky mutters eventually.

"No," says Steve. "I'm always doing what you say."

"You'd really rather stay out here?"

"At least this is mine."

A new wound sears between his ribs. Bucky sighs at him; incurs Steve's ire.

"Go away," Steve half-shouts, frowning.

"No."

"Bucky."

"You're stuck with me. You know that? Jesus Christ, you're a _lunatic._ Move over."

"Move -- _where_? It's a _sofa_."

Bucky doesn't care. He holds one hand under Steve's bony hip and the other over his chest, and slides onto the sofa beside him, curled up close, lips at his neck.

"Give me some blanket," he mutters.

"No," Steve answers, but he doesn't hit him or make him leave. So that's a start.

"C'mon. It's cold out here."

"You suffer for once."

Bucky laughs at that, helpless, and then does suffer with it for a while as Steve's muscles seem to relax, one at a time. A few minutes later Steve kips the blanket behind him and settles deeper into Bucky's arms. "There," he mutters, surrendering with just the same reluctance Bucky always feels in himself. "Happy?"

"Yes," he says, entirely truthful, and it's too narrow a sofa to be a convenient fit for long but they lie in it anyway. It gets uncomfortable, neither of them is sleeping, but this is just what they need, somehow. It's the balm of an apology without either of them actually offering one. If it's a bit dreadful, it's also familiar, by now half-routine.

"I'll move out," Steve says at last, soft enough to make Bucky think he may have even seen reason. "I'll find somewhere else to live. If that makes this easier."

Bucky feels a twinge in his chest. He grips against Steve tighter, hand still splain on his chest. "If that's what you want, Rogers. But I wish you wouldn't."

Steve turns over against the sofa until he's facing him, looking him in the eye. Bucky can't parse his mood until Steve reaches, oddly docile, raking his hand through Bucky's hair. "I won't ever be enough for you," he says, voice low. "Will I?"

"You are," Bucky says, frowning, without a second's hesitation. "The world's the problem."

"Well, I can't do a thing about that."

"But we are trying. We're doing the best that we can. Can't you see?"

Steve doesn't say anything.

"You got a better idea?" Bucky asks him.

Steve seems to think, a while. "No," he says at last, and it might be the first time in fifteen years Bucky's ever really heard him sound something like total defeat.

"Well," Bucky says. He can't stand this in him, he won't abide it. "I'm here, aren't I? I ain't leaving. Isn't that something?"

Steve doesn't reply for such a long time, but Bucky thinks maybe he hears it -- "Not enough," quiet as hell, a long time later.

Whether Steve said it or not, it leaves Bucky blinking awake, staring, full of dread, until long after the sun comes up. But at least Steve comes to bed the next night when Bucky asks him to, without another word about it, so he hopes something got through.

  


  


  


23.

Steve's grown more reserved, past few months. Bucky's not sure how to deal with that. 

At first he thinks he has a secret, though what sort he can't parse out. He dismisses the idea on account of it driving him crazy. The world is just changing, he decides. Steve's only been quiet since the war got declared. It's almost like he finally understands what it means when people _really_ start a fight, and the fact of it's changed him. The changing world has changed him.

He starts spending nights away, somewhere.

Bucky doesn't ask questions. He wants to, God knows; they burn in him like an urgent beast, but it seems that Steve's just finally going out and taking his advice. It's good for him, it's good for them both; he doesn't dare do a thing to put that into any kind of peril. So he swallows his avarice and goes out those nights himself; dances until dawn, exhausts himself into forgetting him.

Then Bucky finds out he's been trying to enlist himself in the goddamned Army, when he finds a rejection slip in the pocket of his coat. 

He finds he asks a lot of questions after that.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Bucky rasps, voice shaking. He holds the slip aloft in his hand that declares him Steve Rogers from Minnesota. So that explains why he's been trying to talk without an accent these days.

Steve looks at him, distant, inexplicably not angry. Bucky doesn't understand it. "I'm just trying to contribute," Steve says, calm.

"To _what_?"

"The world."

"What's wrong with art?"

"I'm in advertising, Buck. I make the world _worse._ "

"This again! You still going to those communist things?"

"You know I'm not."

"Just carry it with you now I suppose."

"If that's how you want to put it."

Bucky shakes his head at him. "War's the wrong idea."

"Struggle's the only real path--"

"If you fucking talk about _struggle_ and _progress_ one more time..."

Steve raises his chin, defiant, but doesn't go on.

Bucky runs a hand over his face and forces stability. He leans against the table, ticket still in his fist. " _War_ is not _progress._ You're a fool."

"I'm not."

"You'd last all of twenty minutes out there. You're signing yourself up to get killed, and what for?"

"It's twenty more minutes than I'll give sitting here."

"You got a real problem when it comes to your regard for your life. Seems to me you're awful eager to throw it away for being a man who spent half of October not breathing."

"I'm not eager to throw it away," Steve says calmly. "I'm eager to make something of myself."

"You've got a savior complex the size of the moon is what you've got."

Steve's teeth peel at the skin of his lip as he looks at Bucky almost with -- _boredom._

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Bucky shouts. "Fight me!"

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes!"

"Then go to hell," Steve says, still too calm. "I do what I want, and so do you."

He brandishes the ticket aloft. "Where you get _killed_?"

"Where I contribute to something. Don't get confrontational."

"Me?! I'm not the one signing up for a war!"

"Maybe you should."

Bucky stares at him then, energy draining out through his feet. Steve stares back a minute, then blinks, regret finally sparking on his face. "I didn't mean that," he murmurs.

"You know how I feel about it."

"Guess I do now."

"You did before, don't give me that."

"The US hasn't even declared war, Buck." 

Bucky could wring his neck, he's playing so dumb. "So they're boosting recruiting in your mind for what, merry sport?"

"Basic training will take me a few months right off."

"You can't _do_ basic training, Steve."

"Aren't you the one always telling me to try?"

He's mocking him, now. It rots in Bucky, makes him feel sick. "Are you... punishing me for something?" he asks, wrung out. "Are you trying to make a point? Because I get it, pal, message received. I'll do better next time, I swear it. Now knock this shit off."

But maybe it's not a point, because Steve cocks his head. "What message do you think I'm sending exactly?"

"That you're self-sacrificial. That you're giving it all up for my crazy whims. I get it, Steve, I hear you. I don't know what you want me to do different when I still got a family to support, but I'm willing to try. You want me to do a strip tease? Huh? You want me to treat you right? I'll treat you right, you got it, anything you want." Bucky falls to his knees; shuffles around the table. He knows he's being dramatic, but with Steve so calm one of them has to be. "Anything, I mean it. Just say the word."

"Oh, stop."

"Quit this crazy army lark and I will. It's driving me mad, thinking about this, about you at war. Please don't, Steve. Please don't do this."

Steve props his fingers under Bucky's chin, a gentle thing. "It's not a crazy lark," he mutters fondly.

" _Steve._ " He's begging, now, actually begging, just to be taken seriously.

"I like the idea of you treating me right, though. Could use more days like that."

"No, uh-uh. You gotta say you'll quit with this army thing."

"Well, I won't do _that._ "

Bucky wrenches his face away from his touch.

"Bucky, come on. This isn't an ultimatum."

"It -- it isn't, no. It's a request. I'm _asking_ you, Steve."

"You're bribing me into doing what you want." Steve runs his fingers through his hair, as though struck by Bucky's bewilderment. "You mean the world to me, you know that?"

Mockery again, bordering on cruel, throwing his own words back to him like that. Bucky blinks; sets his head down in his lap. "I know," he says. There's barbs to it, razor-sharp.

"Then you gotta know how serious I am." Steve runs a strand of Bucky's hair between two fingers. He's let it get a little long, but it's been a long time since he's let Steve touch him. Maybe he was waiting for Steve to make it happen, fuck knows why he does what he does anymore. "I'd have to be serious, to leave you. I don't want to."

"Then don't."

"I have to."

"No you _don't._ "

"Yes, I do."

"Call it what it is. This is a suicide run."

"It's not, Bucky," Steve says. "It's to live a life worth living, for once."

" _Steve._ Get your _head_ on straight. You won't live at _all_. You'll die a worthless death for an amoral cause."

"It's not amoral."

"All war is amoral!"

"You know, they could really use you at the pacifist marches."

"Fuck you," he says, but there's no real venom in it.

"Why are you so deadset on the fact that I'm gonna die?"

"It doesn't take a genius! How many times has the Army rejected you already? Even _they_ know it! Why don't you?"

"I'd be _for_ something, Bucky."

"After all this time -- _all this time -- this_ is how you choose to take my advice?" He looks at him from his knees. He just feels defeated. He feels like Steve Rogers has finally punched him in the worst possible way, right in the gut, and without any sense of the damage it's caused. "It's too far, Steve. You're out of it. Find something else, anything, _please._ You know, I really thought you'd taken another lover. _That_ would've been better than this."

Finally, an adverse reaction; the skin around Steve's eyes tightens, just the slightest amount. "You mean the way you do?"

"I date 'em and leave 'em, you know that. You, though…" He sighs, shoulders slack. "Heart like yours, I figured it was a matter of time. Just never thought it'd be a war you'd leave me for."

Steve curls all his fingers briefly in Bucky's long hair. He runs them slowly through his locks, actually _comforting_ him. "I haven't left yet."

"But you're planning it."

Steve searches his eyes, pulling gently at the ends of his hair like he's testing for feeling, spreading the strands of it between his fingers. But when Bucky only stares at him ever solid, pleading with his eyes, Steve clicks his tongue and coaxes his face to rest in his lap. "It's not _about_ you," Steve tells him, and if Bucky had any brains left in his head he thinks he might be humiliated by this situation, but instead he's just relieved Steve hasn't forsaken him, that he's taking him at least this seriously. "You never understood it. But I never chose any of this. Not you; not falling for you. Certainly not pretending we don't feel it. Most days we act like roommates. You know that kills me."

Bucky only nods where his cheek rests against Steve's knees. It kills him, too.

"All that was chosen for me. You really think I didn't try to make something of myself? That I haven't been trying this whole time?"

"But you _succeeded_. You went to school, you're in advertising, you said it yourself."

"Patchy work. Work I hate. Cartoons smoking cigarettes. You wanna talk about death knells? I write 'em for kids who don't know better."

"Enough about the cigarettes."

"You just think everything's about you, huh? I didn't choose that work either, by the way, it landed in my lap and it's still only barely enough to cover my share of rent. So I sit here, sick half the time, watching you dating, working, living. You think that's how I _like_ it?"

"No. I don't think you like it."

"But something out there _needs_ me."

"Needs your sacrifice. Your blood."

"That's all I've ever had to give."

"No, Steve, _God_. I've been saying for fifteen years already you've never had to do that." Steve only sighs. Bucky looks up at him, miserable. "I need you," he says, quiet, and Steve shakes his head, then -- not unkind. Pitying. Bucky shuts his eyes hard so he doesn't have to see it.

"It's not enough," Steve says, quiet. "If you needed me enough, Bucky, I wouldn't feel like this."

"Is that what you think?"

"Yeah. It is. Don't you think you'd feel better, if things were different? If we lived this like we should?"

"So… suppose we did. Would that keep you home?"

Steve cuts out ferocious sigh, the hands disappear from Bucky's hair. "Don't you dare."

"I'm just saying. Would that change things? Would that save you? If I said that I would?"

When Bucky finds it in him to look up again, he sees only anger contorting on Steve's face. He hadn't expected that. "So has it been that easy all along?" Steve asks, hollow. "All I had to do was threaten to leave?"

"No -- no. I didn't mean--"

"That's all it takes to get you to shape up? A _threat_?"

"It's not like that. I--"

"Oh, go to hell, Bucky," Steve says. This time he means it. The words stick in his throat, like they're driven out of him from the very root of spite. "Go straight to hell with that. _God,_ you're worse than they are, you know that?"

"No," Bucky says, empty. "No. Steve. Please listen to me. You can't go to war, I really mean it. Either it's gonna kill you or you'll get arrested first and you'll die in jail instead, because there ain't no one who's gonna take care of you there. They've driven you to this, don't you see?"

" _You_ have."

Bucky's stomach is falling, now, struck into it by the tragedy of it, by the desperation that's taken its place. "No, I haven't. I haven't. I'm trying to say I'll do anything to make you stay. You hearing me, Rogers? I mean it, I really do, I'll do any damn thing you want me to. You want me to quit my job, give all this up just to be with you? I'll do it. We'll find a bridge to live under, roam the country, stay free, if it means you don't go to war."

"Don't mock me," Steve says, but Bucky shakes his head.

"I'm not. I'm deadly serious. I'm as serious as you are. We'll live for as long as we can, you and me together, however long it takes to make it work. Just don't -- do this, Steve. Don't you go to war. Don't go betraying yourself like that. Not you. Not you. Not given the way you see the world. Your soul's too good for it, Steve, it'll break you. It'll break you down before it kills you, and that's -- just promise me, Steve. Promise me. If you've once cared for my feelings at all you'll have to swear to me that you won't go to war."

Bucky thinks it lands at first, from the way Steve stares at him, but then he shakes his head like he's _disappointed_. "You've made me promise too much of myself already," Steve says, quiet, pitying again, and Bucky hates the way that roots in him. "I can't live up to your expectations anymore. More than bringing me down, it's eating me up. I can't do it forever. I won't. I have to _try_ to be worth more to someone than just a dirty secret." And there's a crack in his voice and Bucky feels relieved, somehow, to have found emotion in him; to know Steve's as fucked up as he is, even as they tear each other down. 

"War would eat you up worse, Steve. I swear it. I think you're so accustomed to fighting that you don't understand what it is you're signing up for."

"I'm not stupid, Bucky."

"You got me fooled," he says, but when Steve cocks his head in exasperation he doubles down on sincerity. "Please stay home. That's all I'm saying. Just quit trying at this. You won't last a day out there."

"Bucky -- I don't care."

That shatters the last bit of strength he thinks he had in him. "Sure you do. You care for your life, Steve, or you wouldn't be saying all this."

"So you admit I have to act for myself."

"Look -- I have no interest in mindgames. I just want you to stay. Jesus, Steve, I mean -- I can't look after you while your body's breaking half my life and then come home to find out you're trying to throw it all away. You suffer enough as it is, you've done your life's penance. Stay home, Steve, come on. Don't you leave me for a war, not after all we've done. Don't you leave me behind, Steve, please."

Steve blinks down at him for a long time. "Stay home?" he says, feeling audible in it. "So I can wait for the day you leave me first?" 

"Oh," Bucky says. He's falling again. "No, Steve."

"So I can sit here and watch you find a wife?"

"No. Come on. You know I don't take anyone serious but you."

"For now. That'll change."

"It won't."

"I'm to sit here and wait for the day you kick me out so you can live your _life_. Isn't that what you've always said?"

"No. Steve. No. I'm saying--"

"I won't do it. I won't do it, Bucky. You made me promise not to make you my only thing back when we started all this, and you were right. That's a death sentence, I see that now. This is my bright idea."

"No," Bucky says. He tugs at him, trying to make him understand. " _This_ is a death sentence."

"It may not feel right to _you_. It may not be the complacent solution you've apparently deemed sufficient. But it feels right to _me_ , Bucky, and a hell of a lot more right than living a lie." He gestures loosely at him, dismissive, disdainful, breaking his heart. "I don't want to lie to anyone. I haven't ever wanted a single person in this world other than you, and I don't plan to start."

"Steve."

"But I know how to fight."

"You know that I want that life with you, you gotta know."

"Just not enough. I get it."

"It's not like that."

"Look. Maybe you're right." He tries for a smile, but it's wrong on his face. "Maybe they won't take me. Maybe you'll get your wish and I'll be left to languish as your concubine for life."

"Concubine!"

"But I won't wait here for you to cast me aside. I can take a lot of cruelty from you, but I can't take that."

"I'm not -- _cruelty_. Steve. I would never do that to you."

"That's always been the plan. Right?"

"I'll never cast you _aside_. I can't be rid of you."

"So -- I'll stay your dirty little secret forever? What makes you think I'm just gonna sit here and take that?" He shakes his head and Bucky is at -- such a loss. He can't tell what he's thinking, can't sort out how to bring him down to earth. "I've always been a stopgap for you, Bucky. I'm a temporary measure until you find a dame who fits your specifications. You think your _wife_ is gonna let you keep me as your sidepiece? You think you can make that work?"

"You're my _friend_ , Rogers, I'd never just _drop_ you."

"But I don't want to be friends. I never have. That hasn't been what I wanted since we started this thing."

Bucky blinks at him, searching for words and finding nothing.

"Let me go, Bucky," Steve says. It's grown a bit of softness, again, and Bucky knows then that Steve doesn't mean to hurt him. It's just that he is anyway, same as Bucky's always done. "It's time."

"It's not time," Bucky says. "I don't accept that."

"Buck." Steve's got some smile on his face, now, and Bucky can see the sadness in it. "You never wanted to love me either. You're never gonna take a risk to make this work the way I want."

"That's not fair. You know this is already a _risk_. I risk more every day--"

"But I don't, right? You think I have it easy, hedging this much risk for almost nothing from you?" He shrugs, but it's nowhere near as dismissive as he wants. "I won't keep it up. You're better off without me."

"I'm not. I couldn't be. You're all I--"

But he cuts off, then, and Steve just stares at him and shakes his head. "I'll stay until the Army takes me," he says. "Because God knows I can't help myself. But after that..." He brushes a thumb at Bucky's cheek and opens his mouth to finish, but it seems there's nothing left in him. That's all there is to say.

"Don't leave me," Bucky says, in case it helps to repeat himself.

"I'm going," Steve says, solid and sorry.

"I won't quit fighting this. I'm going to fight to keep you here and you're gonna have to put up with that. I'm not gonna let you throw your life away for -- what is this, spite?"

"Not for spite, Bucky. I'm just doing what you told me."

"You're _dying_ to prove a _point_?"

A shaking smile, then. Steve meshes his fingers with his, terribly tender; Bucky's heart falls anew. "I was already dying," he says, a little thick. "You know that. I just don't plan to do it at 25 in a hospital bed."

Bucky blinks, bewildered, emotion building in his throat. "But you plan to do it at 23 in a German field."

"Yeah," he says, perfectly straight. "If I take a single Nazi down with me, it'll have been worth it."

"That's -- insane. You're insane. You're--"

"Then I'm insane. That's who you love, Bucky. Take it or leave it."

In the end, Bucky has nothing to say to that. He just sits in front of him, spiraling out, letting it happen as Steve cards fingers through his hair.

"Please don't do this," Bucky says, involuntary, when the ache in his chest grows too big to keep it all in.

"I have to." Then, of all things, Steve smiles. Bucky's witnessing a tragedy, writing itself before his eyes. "You always knew I would, Bucky. One of these days, you knew I'd pick up the fight."

And maybe he's right. Maybe Bucky had known he'd fight his way out of this thing, one day. But he'd never thought it would look like this. The trouble is that he'd never really thought that far outside of what they already had and he realizes, too late, that Bucky had envisioned they'd keep doing this forever. Working; dating; living on as bachelors, just like this. Wanting each other and making that work.

But it's been Bucky who's the fool this entire time. It'd just taken a war to coax Steve into proving it.

  


  


  


24.

Suddenly, between them, Bucky's become the fighter. He fights Steve tooth and nail -- on the war; on enlisting; on what brand of shortening to get. But it's no use. Steve maintains his damnable calm. Through each of these fights he just looks up at Bucky and says nothing at all. He repeats the same phrases over and over about _duty_ and _purpose_ , like it means a damn thing. It brings Bucky to his knees then sets him on his feet; leads him striding through the streets, fists landing in the first fascist face he can find.

They don't even have to do much to provoke him. They've done enough just by threatening to take Steve from him. Someone looks at him the wrong way and that's all he needs to roll up his sleeves. He's just looking for a fucking excuse. There's a solid array of fascists just in their neighbourhood so it's not even that hard; there's a few goddamned fascists at _work_ , for crying out loud, and it's all he can do not to get his ass fired. Before he knows it he's gotten to the point where he's left bruised and bloodied most nights of the week, the way Steve used to do, just trying to keep this fury from burning him.

It's Steve patching him up, now. He leans over him in silence and lets his looks say enough.

"Spare me," Bucky says, when he can't stand it anymore. He's spent days, now, being subjected to tests thinly veiled as Army eligibility drills while he's been at work and it's left his temper threadbare and worn. He doesn't dare say a word about it to Steve, though; he went to a bar after work and tried to drink the temper out of him. He barely got through a single shot before he wound up punching the guy next to him for making a goddamned slur. Then he got set upon by four of his pals. Given the size of them, he thinks he didn't make out too bad.

"Think your cheekbone might be shattered," Steve says.

"It's fine," says Bucky, but it doesn't feel right. He winces when Steve touches fingers to it.

"You trying to get yourself killed?" Steve says, voice deep. He's mocking him again. He does this all the fucking time now. 

"Cut it out, would you? I can't take it today."

Steve shrugs, like he doesn't care. "You _should_ see a doctor."

"Forget it."

So Steve retreats back into silence and Bucky glowers at him, hating him inexplicably, though nowhere near as much as he hates himself. He wills Steve to show him something, _anything_ , beyond this goddamned _certainty_. He's never seen it on him before about anything but Bucky himself and it roots at him, poisons him, that Steve could be as sure about going off to his death as he is about this.

He's left spiralling out for Steve Rogers, same as ever, only now he feels his skin hum with the need to punch the nearest asshole instead of the need to reach out and be tender. 

"Stay home tonight," Bucky says, when defeat's set back into him enough to level his voice. He knows what Steve's plans are; saw the bag packed by the door. Maybe he's going to Richmond tonight. Maybe it's Boston. 

Steve shakes his head and avoids Bucky's eye. 

They must fight about the war twice a damn week. Each of their arguments exhausts him completely. They void him of reason, leave him on the brink of tears. He just wants Steve to understand; but nothing changes a bit. They argue and argue and Bucky's voice cracks, and Steve holds steady and doesn't say another word. Then he disappears for a night and never talks about where, returning only with disappointment, which fills Bucky with relief. 

Bucky takes him into bed more these days. He's just so determined to convince him to stay. He tries to do it by way of touch; tells him this is the life he wants, now, so long as they can keep up appearances. He plans to show it. He makes Steve feel like a god among men -- sucks him good and long until Steve's left stuttering, but there's still only so much he can do. When Steve makes up his mind, he's as terrible and brutal as when he's bursting with fury.

Bucky doesn't let it go. He can't. He'll make Steve roll his eyes 'til kingdom come if it means he saves his life. He'll endure his steely stares, his adamant complaints that he's ruining the time they have left, if it means there's more time to have. So they fight wildly, weekly, about that goddamned war.

Until Bucky's conscription notice comes.

Steve's not so keen on the war after that.

  



	3. ENDS

  


25.

Nine weeks is a long time to be gone. All he has to do is look at Brooklyn to know it.

The changes are obvious. If he left in winter, he's come back in spring. It's a hell of a lot warmer than Wisconsin. Kids play in the street in the sun's final light. 

Bucky's learned that he's the steadiest shot in his platoon. He's being set up for corporal, which is about the wildest thing he's ever heard. He's never seen combat. He will, given time. The rest of his section's been shipped out already but he's heading back to Madison in a couple of days to complete the next leg of training. He'll ship out in the summer, but he's been sent home in the meantime -- home, or whatever this is. He's in a place where folks step aside just to clear a path for him. They offer him respect and damn near _deference_ , all just because of the clothes on his back. Wearing his uniform had been a mistake, he can see that much. Still, he stands tall; it's been drilled into him by now. 

He expects his mother to croon over his shoulders and the way they've squared. Even he's seen a change in nine short weeks. He can't figure out if it's really Brooklyn that's changed, or if it's just him.

When Bucky turns onto his mother's street he finds he can't take another step. 

He can't face this. His heart pounds in his throat. The flowers bloomed while he was gone and he bloomed too, into something he hates. He tries to move forward but he can't stand to see the girls. He dreads facing the changes in them, feels sure can't take the worry lines on Ma. He's been called _Barnes_ for weeks now and can't fathom going back. He's scared that if he sees them all he'll find a reason not to return. 

Girls are playing down the street and Bucky stares at them a second, but even Ellie's too old for that now. Ma wrote him to let him know she's being taken out on dates just since he's left. That churned in him for days afterward. It affected him enough that it left a tremor in his hand he had to quell down to line up a shot, and now, facing this, he wants to disappear. He wants to live among lilacs, never to be found.

He feels too much, that's his damn problem. He's always been so fucking emotional.

He turns around and walks to Steve's.

And it is _Steve's_ , now. Bucky'd told him as much as he'd packed his things -- told him to get rid of anything he didn't want. He'd send back some money, anyway, just enough to keep him covered. "Things might be a bit tight again," he'd said, "and I gotta send some to Ma. You should go there if you're lacking for food. She'll take care of you, you know she will."

But Steve hadn't said anything. He'd just watched Bucky pack with this look on his face that said he thought God was punishing Bucky for his own hubris. Bucky took him with both hands and stared him down. "Stop," he said. "This ain't on you," but Steve had just held at him, stroking at his wrists.

When the notice had come, Steve had been out, and Bucky'd sat down hard at the table. He'd had to think about this, had to figure out what came next. Steve had come home before he could start. They took one look at each other before Steve's gaze had fallen to that godforsaken telegram; and Bucky'd had to scramble to his feet to get an arm around his back before he passed out, groceries falling to the floor.

He must've heard conscriptions were going around because he'd known at once just what it was. "Oh God," Steve said, looking as pale as Bucky'd ever seen him; but then he found his feet and wiped angrily at his tears, and cursed out the war and the whole goddamned army.

In the end, that was it. That was all it took to stop their fighting. Months washed away in a single swath. 

For all Bucky'd sworn they'd destroy one another, war found a way to get to them first. Neither of them could've seen this coming. 

"Do you get it, now?" Bucky'd muttered to him, after they'd climbed into bed and fucked desperate and wordless. He planned never to let Steve sleep on the sofa again; held Steve against him like he'd never let go. "Do you see why I fought you so hard? Do you see what this feels like?"

Steve had only lain in silence and then tried valiantly to choke back sobs, so Bucky never brought up the whole thing again. He'd left on a Monday not long later, while Steve was at work, and they'd known it was coming but did nothing special. The night before Bucky had fucked him good and slow, made him shake right apart, and when he woke in the morning Steve had already gone.

They'd written, once. There hadn't been much to say.

Now Bucky's not sure where else to go. He doesn't know this city. It's foreign, or he is. He used to take private joy in the colours of spring, not least because Steve had such a way of drawing them. His pneumonias would give way to hayfever in May and all he would ever do was draw.

The sun disappears by the time Bucky gets there. Dusk casts over the door. Bucky stares at it for a long time, letting darkness fall around him.

He can't for the life of him figure out if he should knock.

He knows he looks ridiculous -- standing at attention with a duffel over his shoulder, in full uniform, staring down a door. People have probably seen him by now, but he hopes he's not so unrecognizable now that no one knows him at his own home. Though he's been addressed overwhelmingly as Specialist since he's stepped off the bus, so it's hard to tell; he's been saluted for God's sake, and that's just absurd. He wonders if he's got any identity left to anyone besides himself. All he really wants is for someone to recognize him.

He could probably stand to knock, he decides, but it's waiting for an answer that he thinks might kill him. He'd rather arrive unannounced than risk that Steve's not here, or that Steve's moved out, or to have a new lover open the door. Bucky steels his resolve and kicks aside the brick beside the door; feels relieved to find a key, but also disappointed. Steve ought to have better security than that if he's living alone. Any old person could find this damn thing. He puts the key in the lock before he can second-guess himself; feels the satisfying _click_ when the door unlocks. He opens the door and steps inside. 

Steve definitely still lives here. The apartment hasn't all that much changed. It's a little more Steve-like; he clicks on a light to find there's a desk in the corner, now, covered in drawings. A ruler's strewn across it, and new erasers too. Steve must be well enough to work. It looks like he's been able to afford new supplies of all sorts -- paints sit in the corner, the blues labeled carefully. _Sky,_ probably, or _dark blue_ for type. Those and the greens are always under-used. 

There are dishes in the sink, a newspaper on the floor. The sofa's been tilted as though to catch the sun. Steve sleeps in the bed, now, that much is clear. Bucky fills with relief; he hadn't known if he would. The smell that's been trailing him has followed him in, this intoxicating floral thing, and he finally finds why: a lilac branch sits in the windowsill, wilting, propped upright in an old glass jar. It's been there a little long but still holds its petals, its perfume, and Bucky could cry. It's perfect and inexplicable -- like he'd known it was here. Like he's been smelling Steve since he got home.

 _Home._ Here it is. It's been here all along. He lets his duffel fall from his shoulder and onto the floor. His heart's in his throat; his shoulders relax. From the feel of them, sound of them, they haven't done that in weeks.

Steve steps into view. 

He's the best sight on Earth. His hair is mussed, as though by sleep. He's in only his shorts and an undershirt -- a testament to the unseasonal warmth of the weather, that he can sleep like this. One hand's clenched around a candlestick; he'd apparently thought he was being robbed. 

He stops dead when he sees Bucky -- just stands there, half-hidden by a wall. He stares at him, lips parting, brow relaxing in sleepy shock.

"Hi," Bucky rasps. Silence blankets the room. Steve keeps staring, like he's not sure what he's seeing. Bucky's blood pounds in his ears and he sees how stupid, now, he'd been not to tell him about this. He should have told him he was coming home. He'd thought he would go to Ma's and swing by the next day, being Saturday, to see how he was. He'd never expected he'd prefer to land here.

Bucky takes his hat off, suddenly twice as nervous. His limbs shake a little, but soon quells that down. He can't tell what Steve's thinking, if he'll kick him out or treat him like dirt; he doesn't know how to handle this, or what Steve wants. 

He doesn't even know if he's found someone else. It seems possible, heart like Steve's.

"Hi," Steve finally says. Tension splinters like breaking ice. That voice again, rough from sleep, and adrenaline floods Bucky just to hear it. It's like he'd forgotten what Steve sounds like in the time since he left. Nine weeks passed and took so much with them. 

Bucky swallows, dry. "I, um… I came home."

"Yeah," Steve says, dropping the candlestick to the floor. "Yeah, I can see that," and suddenly he's moving toward him, swift across the room. Bucky meets him halfway and they reach for each other at the same time, hands gripping, chests heaving, and Steve's in his arms; he's laughing, they both are, he goes where Bucky leads them. 

Bucky leans Steve hard against the counter and sets their brows together, tangling his fingers in Steve's hair. He's breathing too hard. They're both breathing too goddamned hard. 

"You didn't write," Steve manages eventually, swallowing thick. It feels wrong to break the silence, but one of them has to, in the end.

"I didn't know how," Bucky admits. "We don't talk, you and me."

"Guess we gotta learn."

"I guess we do. The flowers are out, for example. I would've liked to have known."

"Spring came early this year. I missed it, with you."

Bucky feels paralyzed, suddenly, as though petrified by something. Steve's hands start to map his body through his uniform. "You got big," he remarks.

"Not really."

"You did."

"It's the corners."

"It's not the corners."

What can he say? He's different enough. Steve's just the same. "See what you like, I guess."

"I like you."

"Sure."

"You're taking a long time to kiss me."

"I don't know if I could."

"Why?"

He's afraid of the question. "Well, maybe you found someone."

"I didn't," says Steve.

"Maybe you're ill," says Bucky.

"I'm not."

"Maybe you--" _Don't want me anymore,_ he doesn't add, but Steve hears it anyway.

"You come home from a war and you won't even kiss me?" Steve murmurs. "What's the point of you?"

"I'm heading out again. I got the weekend and that's it. They want me back Monday."

Steve reads Bucky's eyes. "You're not shipping _out_ ," he says carefully.

"No. Back to Wisconsin. They're making me Corporal."

"You're kidding!"

"Wish I was. No idea why. Guess I can shoot all right."

"Bucky." He can't quite read the tone; maybe he's relieved, maybe angry. "How long for?"

"Hard to say. Five weeks, six."

"And then -- you're back?"

"I don't know," he says, helpless enough.

Steve nods, lips parting again. "You gotta _write_ me," he says. His eyes keep scanning down, landing on his mouth.

Bucky smiles, finally. Licks his lips just to watch Steve's face. "Yeah? You miss my griping?"

"Not in the least," Steve deadpans. "I just like getting mail."

And that, for some reason, is the last straw -- _that's_ the thing, the lie of it, that brings Bucky to kiss him. It's hot, it's _beautiful_ , he spins him around; lifts him onto the table, steps between his knees. Steve's hands are in his collar, firm and protecting, and Bucky holds him tight with every ounce of life that still pounds in his veins.

A little while later Bucky thinks a little hard and realizes he's got his trigger finger wrapped around Steve's beautiful cock. He's still in his uniform; he laughs with the thought of pulling Steve off until they're defiled. Imagines cum on the sleeves, on those broadening pauldrons; then, grinning full, he drops to his knees, and drags his lips over the head of him the way he does in his dreams.

  


  


  


26.

Bucky thinks they're still in Italy when they stumble across the cabin. Three rooms, blissfully stocked with booze and cured meats, and it feels like a miracle; it feels like a trap. Bucky and his depleted company run a quick perimeter search but, wide-eyed and bewildered, they find nothing untoward. It's a free blessing. It doesn't make sense. They'll take what they can get.

They loot these poor assholes for all they're worth. He'll leave a note, Bucky thinks -- _Thanks for the memories,_ signed with a kiss. It makes him laugh, a little, the feeling so foreign that it actually hurts him. Though maybe that's the air, or just smoking so much. Gunsmoke leftover from a few days past. Who can know.

They stay up all night, drinking and giggling, pretending they didn't lose half the squad two days back. They'd tried to push into Sicily and gotten separated. Fortunately for them, Bucky's always known when to get out of a fight. Those who survived managed it because he took them by the jaw and screamed in their faces just how they were gonna do it. Safe to say he's lost his finesse, but the result is clear: five men alive besides himself, and that's something to celebrate, or at least not to denigrate. Thomas was shot, though he'd struggled along well enough for a while. They thought he might actually pull through until he started going that pasty grey, and then they'd found the cabin, so here they are. They'll stay as long as it takes for Thomas to pass over, they can do that much for him. Then, Bucky thinks, they might risk re-entry, when there's no one's back they have to watch but their own.

Bucky'd stayed steady as a rock as they'd footed it around the border, but when he gave the OK to stay in the cabin he'd slumped down in the corner and shaken for an hour straight. It had taken steady sips from a bottle of whiskey to steady him, and even then it barely took. He hadn't even moved until enough liquor filled his veins enough to make him feel loose, but at least his reputation was still in place. He kept his head and kept command, and half his men are still alive because of him. He's had worse days. He has definitely seen worse days than this.

So he shoots the shit with his men, lacking other things to do. He keeps drinking through the chilly night; they all do. Thomas sleeps comfortably in one of the rooms, or as comfortably as he can, and the rest of them valiantly ignore his fevered shouts; sing from time to time to drown him out. There's a decorum on such things. They makes it work.

He's still drunk when the sun rises. 

By then the party's wound down, if that's what it was. Reynolds and Marquis are slouching against the wall beside in sleep and Adams and Marshall have disappeared somewhere, though where he can't recall. It's not important. Bucky sees light dawning just outside a window. He decides he wants to see it rise. The sun is such a gloriously stubborn bastard. It comforts him more than anything, more than whiskey or cigarettes, that it'll keep on rising on the day the world ends. For all that's finite, it's good to know there's still something eternal.

Bucky steps outside with his bottle and cigarettes and finds a tree to lean against. The ground is cold but that's all right. He can take a bit of cold. It'll warm up soon. It seems to be springtime. He isn't sure when exactly the weather changed. Time stopped mattering to him long ago, except in units of distance: how many days' walk they had to go, how many days until their next orders. The air smells nice enough; it's even warm enough even that one of the windows has been propped open on the cabin. Bucky remembers cracking open the window to the fire escape in those early days of April and smelling the Brooklyn morning with something like hope.

Bucky smokes slow, legs propped up, elbows set against them. One hand holds the bottle between his knees. His fingers tense white. The sun peeks its head over the horizon. The world gets cast in orange hues and here, the world is still. Just for a minute.

Then -- a sound.

Bucky cocks his head, sits at attention, but he knows what it is -- it's a sigh, intimate. It's _viscerally_ familiar, and there's another not far behind.

Bucky's eyes flit over toward the open window.

Someone is fucking.

 _His men_ are fucking, to be specific, and there are definitely two of them, and they are definitely fucking each other. Bucky's just drunk enough to find that _awesome_. His head hits the trunk of the tree and he grins to himself as he listens; tries to remember, from the pit of his memory, what it was like to use his body for pleasure.

He remembers. Then reality hits. From inside, a sigh becomes a moan. It's followed by shushing; a breath of laughter, then he can't hear a thing. He can't hear a thing because his heart's so loud in his ears. 

He never gets like this anymore. He's trained himself out of it. On his worst days he would notice it if a man approached from fifty feet. Now, upon hearing sex sounds of all things, for the first time in months he can't hear for shit. He tries to think, but Jesus _Christ_ \-- he's their commanding officer, he can't know this. For _God's_ sake, do they have no sense of standards? Nothing's ever fucking simple anymore, is it?

He pushes up from where he sat against the tree and tries to figure out where to go to get away from it. Nowhere is good. He can't go back in; he wouldn't risk interrupting them. They deserve this, if that's what they want, but he's unarmed, too, so he won't risk the woods. He stands about for a minute just trying to think goddamn straight and decides he can do them the greatest service by staying where he is. He'll pretend he's heard none of it; that's the safest bet. And once he's sat back down again his heart settles enough to give him back his hearing.

Another sigh, cascading from within.

It's just -- _God,_ it's just that -- 

Steve used to wrap his thumb around his cock in some fundamentally perfect way and all of a sudden it's all he can think of. He hasn't wasted a thought on him in weeks but it was something in the way the crook of his knuckle rested right beneath the head of him that drove Bucky wild. Steve was right-handed and Bucky left, and so every time for _years_ Bucky wrapped his hand around himself he found he was recreating it, placing his thumb the same way. He'd thought of Steve even when he wished he wouldn't, when he was trying not to, when he was jerking himself off to avoid bringing Steve to bed. 

And he's thinking about it now, halfway around the world. He's trying not to; he wishes he wouldn't. He's staring through the gaps in the trees but it's the same as it ever was because he can't do a thing about it. The sound of a gasp floats through the open window and Bucky's eyelids flicker, his throat goes tight. Jesus _Christ_ he's a lost cause -- after all this time, given all this distance. He washes the taste of lust in his mouth out with whiskey but it's not enough. It's never enough.

He looks away from the house and into the trees. He'll never see Steve again. The sooner he can learn to accept that, the better. He'll die out here and there's no use thinking otherwise. There's no use thinking of him, no use remembering those dainty hands, the way his mouth would curve into a smile even with his dick full between his lips--

"Shit," comes a voice; "the _fucking_ window." And that's Adams, no doubt; no surprise there. Bucky blinks himself expressionless and just in time to see a pair of eyes appear in the window, and he tries not to look but it's become instinct by now. He winces at himself, looks away again -- then hears Marshall, hissing, "the goddamned sergeant," followed by some hasty scrambling. Adams' eyes appear in the window a second later and Bucky can't pretend he hasn't heard them any longer. They clearly know he knows and he's really too drunk to deal with this, but he's also too horny and hopeless to care.

He raises the bottle of whiskey in some kind of toast and twists his mouth in some knowing smile he hopes might be friendly. Adams' eyebrows shoot up. The eyes disappear and there's some whispered commiserating. Bucky smiles, feels heat in his cheeks; feels himself calm appropriately down, driven away from desire into shared mortification. 

He leans against the tree and waits to see what happens, and it's a few tense minutes before Adams marches outside, followed by Marshall. Both are halfway out of uniform like it'd be absurd to pretend at decorum. They still stand tall to salute him, though; they stand at attention like any of this matters. 

Bucky watches them with benign interest. Damn him if he doesn't respect it. He's not sure he'd be that brave -- hell, he _knows_ he wouldn't. He thinks what he and Steve would do in that situation and knows for a fact that Steve would face the music while Bucky stayed behind, head in his hands. Then again, maybe it's hard to say for sure what he'd do. He'd hardly given them enough of a chance to get caught. 

Maybe he should have. It's a strange regret to have.

Marshall's flushing furiously, a little endearingly, and Bucky wouldn't trade places with him for the world. Compassion brings him to move. "At ease," he mutters, waving them off. He squints out toward the sun. "We're waiting for a man to die. God knows we could all use a little comfort. You won't hear a word out of me." Then he raises his bottle to them in some belated salute; shrugs, sets it down on the ground. An offering. A peace gesture. 

He pulls his cigarette tin back out of his pocket and waits a minute. He'll regret smoking this now, but at the moment he doesn't care. Maybe he'll give them up, smoke his last one and then that's it. Finally make Steve happy one last time. He laughs at himself a little; lights it as he looks to the sun. He is definitely too drunk to deal with this properly, but maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe none of this really matters. 

Bucky looks to Adams and Marshall to see that neither of them has moved, except to drop their hands. Adams is looking at him a little scrutinously while Marshall watches Adams for cues, but Bucky shakes his head, gestures at the ground. "Hell, boys, it's our last day on planet Earth. I plan to spend mine watching the sun rise. You all want to spend it doing something other, well, that's not my business. But if you're not gonna have a drink, you best let me know so I know to keep this hangover at bay long as I can."

It's another short while before Adams comes over and sits down beside him, but then Marshall does too. He hands them the liquor and doesn't bother looking at them. Adams cracks open his cigarette tin and offers its contents wordlessly and Bucky meets his eye; smirks a little, takes one with a nod. 

He puts it in his pocket for later; hears Adams hum with interest. Some latent impulse sparks in him, but it'll die again in the cold light of day. Still, it might have turned into something; he imagines getting into Sicily and finding a room, Adams knocking for a cigarette, making room for pleasure before the war takes them whole.

It turns out he'll never know, because Adams and Marshall get killed the next day.

  


  


  


All's fair in love and war. 

Ain't that what they always say?

  


  


  


26.5

He does see Steve again, or so he thinks. He's not totally sure it's him, but then he isn't sure of all that much.

Bucky'd known that Steve had kept trying to enlist. He'd known it and he'd scolded him, but he thought it wouldn't make any difference. Two years of trying and Steve had been denied at every turn, so he figured the Army was portraying something like sense for a change. He figured they would keep him out if Bucky couldn't.

Only they didn't.

Or…

Maybe they did, and Bucky's lost his mind. Maybe he was held so long that they actually killed him. Maybe he's in purgatory now, hallucinating in fantasy. He's dying on that table and the heavens sent him his biggest sin. 

Here's Steve Rogers, too beautiful for words. Steve Rogers, fit and healthy; rosy and _tall_. He could lean Bucky up against any old thing and make him _feel_ again to the end of time, and Bucky's halfway there just thinking about it. He thinks of all the things he wishes Steve would wake up in him. He won't get those things. He won't, because this is purgatory. If you can't get drunk in purgatory, you definitely can't get laid in purgatory, and he is not getting drunk, so...

Purgatory seems to be set in London. He's long since stopped trying to make sense of these things.

He doesn't really think he's in purgatory. He just also doesn't believe he's in London. So far as he can figure, he's still strapped to that table, getting experimented on with the help of hallucinogens. This is a dream, he figures; Steve is a dream. It sure as hell feels like one. This is that German scientist using details about Steve to get him to talk plain. Bucky'd been forced to admit to the way he felt about him, just to try to convince them he's not worthy of their efforts, but instead it seemed only to spurn them on. And now they've recreated Steve, albeit badly, his face from a picture and his body from another man. They've managed to put the image in the back of his eyelids. He supposes anything's possible with those chemicals they give him. 

It's an alright dream, as hallucinations go. He doesn't mind being on Allied soil with a strapping version of Steve. He still can't get drunk and he probably can't get laid, but maybe he'll be allowed to die if he pushes the envelope hard enough.

The problem is that there's a dame in a red dress following Steve around, and Steve can't take his eyes off her. There's some narrative brilliance in that. Steve _would_ learn to go straight upon becoming a giant; that makes sense. Bucky'd always thought Steve's life would be different if he wasn't so small, and now he's being let down easy in his own damn hallucination. Next the dinosaurs will storm in and win for the Allies. He can't wait, to be honest. Maybe at that point he'll quit slipping up and trying to treat this world like it's real.

Steve ranks higher than he does, somehow. That's a relief, if inexplicable. Steve keeps getting pulled away to be _consulted_ on things and Bucky, left alone, takes the opportunity to wander outside. He finds he prefers open air since... since he _thinks_ he's been freed from that table. Something about enclosed spaces makes it feel like the walls are coming in: a bracingly real feeling that convinces him he's not in a dream at all. It's just for long enough to leave panic flooding in his veins, but that's enough to unseat him. Unreality sets in again soon enough. 

He drinks of his whiskey and waits for it to hit.

He's not sure how long he's leaning with his elbows at a railing before Steve finds him again, and _God,_ he looks good. Whatever images they combined to make him work together just fine. Bucky shuts his eyes and turns away, and Steve must see it, because he pauses by the door. But then he steps forward and leans against the rail, so he seems to get over whatever had slowed him.

There's still about two feet of distance between them. Whatever else he's imagining, he seems to remember Steve's mannerisms well enough. He looks sidelong at Bucky the same way he always has, as though waiting for Bucky to make the first move.

The problem is -- Bucky can't, or he won't. He doesn't know what move there is to make. He's hard-pressed to understand what he would say to him now. His last letter to Steve had been this side of honest: he'd urged Steve to move on with his life, certain he was going to die. Steve hadn't written back, at least not so far as Bucky'd received, so he'd assumed that Steve actually had moved on -- but now here he is. 

He should be furious with him, but he isn't. He isn't relieved, or disappointed. Steve may have joined the war, but if anyone can survive it… it's Steve. He'd probably been right about that all along.

"I was being an ass before," Bucky says. He can't bear the silence another second. "About -- Agent Carter. That's her name?"

"Peggy," Steve says. That voice again. Bucky'd drown in it given the choice.

"Boy. _Peggy,_ huh?" Bucky gives a low whistle and tilts his face into his drink. "Known each other a while?"

"Few months."

"And she's your superior."

"In every way."

Bucky looks at him. It's such a _stupid_ thing to say, openly smitten, but so essentially _Steve_ that Bucky feels his stomach drop. Then he laughs, because none of this matters. 

"Sure," he says.

"Not jealous, are you?"

And there he is: the provocateur, the kid who'd start a fight just for something to pass the time. He's still buried in there, under all that muscle. "Nah," Bucky says, and it's true enough. He's regretful -- that Steve has finally moved on. That Bucky urged him to do it. That they're standing here at the end of it anyhow. But he isn't jealous. "Sounds like you're a good match. You'll push each other around. Give me a break from keeping you in line."

"Yeah," Steve says, but it sounds funny. Bucky looks at him again and it's all a little real. He's got those corners to him, those pauldrons, and something animal awakens in the back of Bucky's mind. Bucky wants to grab him and hold _on_ , wants delve his tongue into that mouth; feel him move, feel him grow hard, wants to fuck him, fuck against him. It's been more than a year but it turns out Steve's _here_ , and that's enough; he may not look right but he's the realest thing here.

And just like that, the world grows solid. This _is_ in London, now, he is in London and this is Steve Rogers. It must be. Bucky wouldn't feel this way about a figment -- no figment could make him feel like this. In fifteen months apart there's been no image that's compared. Now the world has turned sharp, Steve has these corners, and Bucky is sober; Bucky's _alive_. 

Steve would win his fights now. Steve might win the goddamned war. Bucky could fight him and Steve would win, steady and solid with wide-spreading hands. Steve would hold him down and make him feel whatever he wanted to and oh, _God_ \-- Bucky wouldn't have a choice and that's the best news he's heard. He'd hold Bucky down and make him feel -- he's on _fire_ with it and Steve's holding his eye.

"What do you want?" Bucky asks, voice run ruined. He clears his throat and turns his face away.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Steve frown. "I don't want anything."

"Then why are you here? Don't you have a dame to chase?"

"She gave me her intel."

Bucky laughs without sound; bares his throat to the night. "Dames don't dress like that to deliver intel, Rogers. She wanted to do a lot more than talk."

"Oh," Steve says; then, " _Oh._ "

"Yeah."

"Should I go…"

"Chase her down? Probably, yeah."

Yet when Bucky looks to him, Steve is staring right back. "Go on," Bucky says.

"But," says Steve.

"You can't have it both ways, Rogers."

Challenge lights in Steve's face. "Bucky."

"What, you want me to fight you?"

"It would be nice."

"Well that's too bad, because I'm all out of fight."

Steve stares at him for far too long, like he sees that it's true but doesn't want to believe it. "You want to talk about it?" he asks him at last.

"No," Bucky says. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to do a damn thing that has to do with it, Rogers, so the solution here is to look forward and not to look back. You hearing me? Nothing happened." Bucky's not so sure what he's talking about now. "You got a life now, Steve, look at you. You got a life and a body, you ain't gonna die. You might never die now, hell, and so you gotta live it -- you _promised_ me. You said that you would. You owe me that much, so get on out of here. Jesus _Christ._ "

"Is that what you want?"

"It's not _about_ what I _want._ It never fucking was. What do _you_ want? Don't you want that beautiful woman to ride you into the sunset?"

"No."

"Then you're out of it!"

Steve smiles at him. Bucky hates to see it. He wrenches his face away; sips at his drink.

"Say I do anyway," Steve says, quiet. "Say I go after her. It's an intriguing thought."

"It better be!"

"But where do you fit in?"

"I don't," Bucky tells him. "Haven't you noticed? I get sent off to war and you get the world, that's the way this story ends. Since I left you got yourself a body, a purpose, a girl, a whole life. You're better off without me."

"I did it _for_ you, Bucky."

"Then you're still out of it, same as goddamn ever. You got a responsibility to yourself and now you have the means to pursue it. I've been saying that since day one."

"And you've been wrong that long."

"Damn it, Rogers, what do you want?" Anger rips a tear in the air between them. He watches Steve's shoulders square, like he's sizing up for a fight. "You want me to bring you back to my room, make it good the way I used to? There's no fucking life in that. There's no _future_ in it, there never was."

"You're wrong on both counts," Steve says, and his voice is menacing and low. It takes on a whole new quality now that he's tall. "I think you're in a real bad way and I'm not gonna push. But I'm not leaving you, either."

"Then you're an idiot."

"So I'm an idiot. How are you looking at this and not understanding what I'm saying? I'm saying I'm _choosing_ you."

"I'm saying don't. I'm not worth it."

Steve cocks his head. Anger gives way to sympathy. That just makes Bucky angrier. "You are to me."

"Get off it."

"I won't."

"Then you're nuts."

"So I'm nuts, I'm an idiot, I'm out of my head. But I'm not lying."

"Of course you're not. You couldn't lie under Nazi duress."

Steve smirks. "I'm pretty sure I could lie then."

"Hope you never have to test that theory, Rogers."

He feels a pull, deep in his gut, something that brings emotion to rise. Either he's really talking to Steve or he's not. If he isn't, he's just admitted to caring about him a little too much to the fucking enemy, and if he is he just acknowledged what Steve saved him from. Either way it's hurting Steve. Either way he's fucking him up, looping him into a world he doesn't deserve to be in. Steve either got himself into this war or he's home where he should be and Bucky prays, suddenly, that he's still strapped down on that torture table. He prays that this is a dream, a hallucination, fucking purgatory or _whatever_ because it means Steve's safe and he's at home and there's nothing to keep him--

Steve's fingers, closing on his arm. "Bucky."

Bucky's heart pounds, real as goddamned anything.

He grips at the railing and lets his face fall. It's all just too much; he can't keep doing this. He wants to push Steve away, wants to put on a brave face, he wants nothing and everything -- wants Steve stepping to him, wants him stepping away. He wants to be braver. He wants to pull away and never look back. He wants Steve to chase him down as he does it.

But the only thing he knows how to do is how to turn to stone. So that's what he does. He stops breathing while panic scrabbles in his chest. It feels like he can hear everything: Steve, shifting in slow motion; the party inside; the beat of his heart, trying to kill him. He counts the beats as they go by -- _four, five, six_ \-- then shifts into motion: blinking, swallowing, and looking to the side. 

"Get off me," he rasps, but Steve only stares at him. Bucky takes a stubborn breath; it sounds like a threat. "Get off me," he says again, and Steve lets go of him but he doesn't step back. His hip leans against the railing, watching as Bucky's eyes wander. 

His skin alternates between heat and cold. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. He doesn't understand much about where he is, or what's going on. "I'm not right," he tells him, voice turned to sand. He swallows against gritted teeth and hopes he understands.

"I can see that," Steve says. His tone's full with sympathy. Bucky can't take it.

"You're not right either."

"Guess I'm not."

"You weren't supposed to come."

"I had to."

"No, you didn't."

Steve reaches out with his thumb.

Bucky ducks his head away. He feels fear light up in him, though fear of what he can't say. He can see Steve sees it; watches the way his face falls in time with his hand. 

Bucky stares at him. Bucky leans away. "Oh, Buck," Steve breathes at him.

"Don't," he bites. "Don't do that."

"Let me--" Steve says, but then he cuts off; let him what, what's he _want_? He's more stubborn than the sun; he steps forth again, reaching. Bucky shuts his eyes and waits for the touch to hit, this time, and it does. The world ends, but it doesn't. Somehow they're both still here. He opens his eyes and he's clutching at the rail; he doesn't know how to make his fingers unclench. 

He looks at the way Steve looks at him, feels his thumb at his cheek, feels Steve's palm spread full against his jaw -- feels his lip start to shake. He can't deal with this, with any of it, even as it's familiar. It's the same old Steve, just trying to show him the truth, but Bucky's not the same and he can't take this now. He's not _for_ this anymore. Doesn't Steve see that he's become war? He's a sniper and a tempest who's forgotten his death toll. He used to swear he'd find another way but it turns out a man just dies slower if you shoot him in the leg. He's learned that blood flows like wine if you hit the right artery and hits a person twice as hard as hooch, only maybe he's immune to that, too, now that he's been set loose on the world. He doesn't know what they did to him but it doesn't feel good and Steve always saw him, but he doesn't see _this._

"Don't you see?" Bucky asks him, voice cracking. All he really wants is for someone to recognize him.

"I see you," Steve says, but it's not the truth. He wants it to be; they both do; it's not. Steve steps to face him and puts his other hand at his jaw too and Bucky grabs at his wrists, the way Steve always used to. He shuts his eyes. His breath takes to shuddering. He wants to pull away but he finds that he can't. This, he's not immune to: the way heat blossoms in him the same as it ever did, and goddamnit, god _damn_ him, death is in his every step but he still remembers love. It's reliable as the sun and Steve's steady as the dawn, and Bucky hates knowing that -- knowing that spark still lives in him, deep beneath the noise. Steve's another free blessing, but just like the cabin Bucky doesn't deserve it. The scales will have to balance somehow. He's terrified to think of it. The consequences can't be good.

He brushes Steve's hands away from his face, trying to stop this before it starts. "Please, Steve," he says, and he can hear the way he sounds. He knows Steve deserves different but he can't muster much else. "I don't have it in me."

Steve seems to understand something, then. He nods, slow, a little brokenhearted, hands falling to his sides. "Okay."

"I'm not really here. You're better off without me."

"You're here," Steve says. "I see you."

"I was better off a ghost."

"No you weren't."

"Stop it. Go live your life."

Steve grabs his wrist but it's an angry thing now, meant to send a message rather than elicit a response. "I'll leave you alone if that's what you want, Bucky," Steve breathes, voice low. "But I won't leave you behind. Not like this. You'll have to live with that."

And so Bucky tries. He finds he can't deny him. He lets it root into his skin and finds he's clenching a fist in the front of Steve's uniform. He doesn't pull in or push him away, he's just doing this: affirming him, somehow. Making sure that he's here. And Steve's sure as ever, like sunrise; like hunger. Like the fact that love still lives in him, like how death's around the corner. 

Bucky doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to die. He just wants to be here, in tension with Steve. Steve's brave enough to be his safe harbour and Bucky doesn't want him to be, except how he does; except how it's the only real thing. 

He wants to know how Steve feels; wants to sink his teeth into that jaw. He wants Steve to hold him down until he's lost to it forever. It chokes him, how bad he wants it. Emotion's started rising and that's toxic; he can't take it.

"Why don't you ever let things go?" Bucky asks him, voice breaking.

Steve's hand's still at his wrist, too broad, a little rough. "You know why."

"It's gonna kill you one of these days."

Steve shrugs, a little sad. "I was already dying. You knew that."

Bucky pulls him in, just a little; pushes him back again, but Steve gets the hint. "Yeah, hey," Steve says. "Bucky. Let me."

"No," Bucky says. "I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did."

"You don't know me."

"I'll let it go after this, if that's what you want. I just want one--"

"No."

"--thing, just one good thing for you to carry with you. I think you've forgotten--"

"I remember everything."

"Just let me remind you."

" _Remind_ \-- do you want me to break?" He finally finds it in him to push Steve away. "Is that your fucking aim? Do your worst, Rogers, because others have had worse luck than you."

Bucky realizes too late he's issued a challenge, and if there's one thing Steve Rogers won't turn down...

He sees feeling cast over Steve's face, horrible and profound. "I aim to keep you alive," he says low in his throat, and Bucky's gone stone; he shuts his eyes when Steve's hands find him and grip, when he's taken in just the way he wants. "I aim to get you out of here," he says, and Bucky believes him, God help them -- it makes him shudder wide open, giving Steve the opportunity he needs, and then he's kissing him deep, bending him back. There's a hand set behind in case his knees give out and Bucky needs it, he's gone; he could live here, or die.

"Get the fuck out of here," Bucky murmurs against his lips, but he can't push him off; he doesn't even try. "Get out, get away from me, I'm not strong enough. _Rogers,_ I have to get _out_ of here, don't you see? Don't you see that I don't have it in me? I'm done for, I'm -- Steve, you gotta go, I can't --"

Steve pulls away at last, gulping hard in his throat, though it's clear he doesn't want to; he's always been the brave one. "I hear you," Steve says, and starts to stumble back. "I hear you, Bucky, it won't happen again." 

Then Steve's gone, he's disappeared; Bucky blinks his eyes clear and sees a world he'd thought he'd left.

  


  


  


27

The war marches on, and so too do they. It hasn't snowed yet but it's damn near close. Bucky doesn't mind. Cold helps him to focus. He takes most nights' watch and the sun always rises. 

Steve wakes up early and watches with him, sometimes. It hasn't come up, the way that things were. It doesn't come up, how they used to fuck frantic. It never comes up how they used to hold each other close, like the world was going to end, and no one would guess it to hear them speak. It takes a few months but they learn to reach back, remember how to be friends; they banter, they joke, they don't really touch.

And for a long time, it works. It keeps Bucky moving, sunrise to sunrise. Bulky Steve Rogers: the world, exhaustive. He's lucky to have him. He doesn't know how else he'd get through the day, but every once in a while emotion takes hold. Watching him laugh is a quotidian hazard. It leaves him out of step, this vice grip in his gut. But for the most part, he gets by.

A mission passes. Another night watch. Two kills, then three. Five kills, then seven; a deer, a bad reflex. He can't figure out whether to count it or not. He feels like he should but the others were men. Insomnia, then, for nearly three weeks. Steve's hand in his hair; quiet a while. It's war, plus that other thing, all of it fair.

They find such a rhythm that it's hard to explain, when it finally does lapse; when they forget their control. Bucky asks Steve for a part to his rifle. He'd left it on the table and he's so fucking tired; it's two in the morning and he hasn't slept. 

Steve hasn't either. Maybe that explains it. They're planning for a mission against Hydra cells. The others are asleep, plus Morita's on watch; it's been just the two of them, preparing in silence.

Now there is this: Steve hands him the part. Their fingers overlap. Time seems to freeze. They don't move their hands and Steve's fingers aren't dainty. They're filthy and calloused and Bucky wants them in his mouth. Arousal pools in his gut on a gradual drip and there's no end to this build; he can't pull back but he can't reach out either.

Steve stares at him, seeming just as fixated. Bucky blinks up at him, eyes falling to his lips. That's all it takes, that momentary lapse: Steve's other hand sets against Bucky's jaw. 

Bucky leans into it. Bucky's an idiot. He has no self-control. He's gotta get out of here. The part falls to the ground, he grabs at his rifle; he sets it on the ground and ducks fast away. He steps out of the tent -- Steve catches his arm. Bucky turns to him, glowering, but then his mouth falls open. 

There's a light from the tent and it catches Steve's profile. If Bucky still believed in God he knows what he'd see. Even such as it is, he can't help but reach out; and before he can stop it he's pulling Steve in. He's a magnet to steel, he's a goddamn lost cause; passion burns as helpless in him as it ever has. 

He touches fingers to his lips. Steve's mouth opens soft. He's the same as he was; same as he ever is. Bucky leans forward and takes that supple mouth and Steve's tongue finds his lip and now Bucky's done for. He's stumbling back; he trips on a rock. Steve's hand's at his back but he still lands hard. His breath coughs out, he's gasping to the stars; Steve's lips are at his neck and he's lost to it all. 

Steve's weight's hard against him, his fingers in his hair. Bucky's a hair's breadth from sobbing; it's the best he's ever felt. "You're getting married," he says, automatic, sputtering the first thing that comes to mind; but then he gasps with conviction and tries to squirm away. "Jesus, Steve, you're getting _married_. What the hell are you--"

"What? No I'm not. Why do you think--"

"Carter."

"Oh. _No,_ Bucky, Jesus. We're not even--"

"You have a life. I'm trying to say--"

"I do have a life, and you're a part of it."

"I won't hold you back. This is a bad--"

"Shut up, would you?" Steve's on top of him and he's bigger, now, so he'll make him if he wants to, and thank God for that. Steve dips his head and drags his teeth across his jaw. Bucky's back arches; he has to kill a noise in his throat. His fingers drag across Steve's back and Steve laughs with it, gorgeous, and sheds off his coat. "I always told you I won't deny who I am, and who I am is someone who wants you."

"Steve--"

"I love you, Bucky. You won't get rid of me." They aren't even drunk; Bucky can't get drunk and neither can Steve. If they never talk about it, they still know it's true. So this must be real, or the closest thing to it. 

"Rogers," he says. "No. No. Rogers, no. I'll ruin you. I'll--"

"You won't," Steve tells him, and he's looking at him, blinking up. All that concern's made towering and vast. "You never have. You always used to--"

"Shut up," Bucky says, because he can't stand the past. "Shut up," Bucky says, because the past is all they have. The present's stretched long for so many years and he thinks it must have been years since he's breathed. Under Steve's hands his lungs fill with air and that's at least something; he feels it, feels him. He needs this right now. Maybe this leads to dawn.

Bucky kisses him. He fucking gives up. He grabs Steve by the hair and pulls his lip with his teeth. Steve groans with it, _God_ \-- he's such a large man, a good man. He's whole and full and _blistering_ on top of him and Bucky doesn't deserve him or a bit of this, but he wants him to stay. It's two in the morning. They're outside the tent and they're rutting on the ground and it's like they're goddamned kids again, still figuring this out. It's been two years and Steve's gotten bigger -- maybe that's it.

Steve's hand still wraps around him in that fundamentally perfect way. Then he's done for; then he's finished. It's the only thing worth living for and the thing that'll kill him. Bullets don't hold a candle to Steve fucking Rogers and he's fucking up into him and he's finally undone. It breaks him, he shatters; he bites on his fist and tries not to shake. His hips cant up, desperate for meaning, desperate to find something in this that he knows what it is, but when Steve's lips wrap around him he shivers apart.

He wants, he _wants_ ; his fingers drag in dirt and pull at Steve's hair and he tilts his head back to strangle a scream. After he comes he finds Steve is holding him, finds himself shaking, finds he's asking for something, asking not to have to feel like this. Steve says he understands but there's tears in his eyes. There's tears in his eyes and that's what Bucky does: leave carnage in his wake. He tears at the world whether he means to or not.

"I don't know how to do it," Bucky tells him, hours later. They still haven't moved when the sun starts to rise. He's warm in Steve's lap; touches hue on his face. "I don't know how to do anything. I can shoot a gun, follow protocol, march. But beyond that it's just -- noise. Fucking -- I don't remember, Steve, I don't remember anything. It scares me more than a gun in my face. I can take a man's life but I don't know how to live, and I--"

Steve nods and he nods, when Bucky cuts off. "I'll get you out of this," he says, and clears his throat.

"Don't promise that." He wipes at his eyes, furious. "You get out of it. I'm already lost."

"No," Steve tells him. "You're right the hell here. I see you. You can't hide from me."

  


  


  


Maybe Steve's right. Maybe there's some spark still buried in him. Maybe it's not even that hard to find.

Bucky decimates a half-dozen smokes and washes his fingers with vicious contempt. His hands are never fucking clean anymore. He's tired of it, tired of dealing with it. He misses the days he worked on machines. Oil was a thousand times better than this, and that's when he thinks of it: the rifle part, still on the ground. He laughs to himself. It feels good, a little weird. Steve looks up at him and he hasn't slept but he still looks damn beautiful. 

He smiles at Bucky and unfurls a map. Dugan gets up, then Dernier, then Jones. Morita trudges his way back from watch. It's a regular morning. The sun always comes up, and it's not that Bucky stills; his hands have a quake in them. They will for a while. He can hear every one of his heartbeats in his ears and hopes to God it'll go away. He'll sleep; that'll help. Meanwhile he listens to Steve plot the mission. 

They'll go in tonight, which means a day of waiting: recon and resting, and a nice solid meal. Steve's a good leader. No one has died. It's been ten months and no one has died, and Bucky realizes it with a jolt at his spine. He used to be so sure that he'd die in a fight but it's been ten months and _no one has died._ Maybe Steve, no bolder but broader, actually has a knack for this. Maybe he's right where he's meant to be; maybe, being here, he might just save them all.

He watches him a while with a strange realization: that Steve, fighting so hard to get into the war, had been right about everything. Maybe he could be right about getting them home. Relief fills him; drives the breath in his chest. A light in him sparks beneath two years of rubble. The sound in his ears reduces to quiet. In the very far distance, birds greet the sun.

"If this goes right," Steve is telling them, "there's not much else to it. All you need to do is follow my lead, look out for each other, and make sure we all get out of the fight." He looks straight at Bucky and holds his eye, and Bucky stares back; bites down a smile. "We'll all get through it. Same as goddamned always."

"Yes, Sir," comes a chorus around them, and Bucky mutters the same: under his breath, holding Steve's eye, realizing he's never felt more prepared to do anything in his life.

He's just right the hell here, watching Steve Rogers' back. 

Same -- God help them -- as goddamned always.

  


  



End file.
